


Tumbleweeds

by HooahSergeant



Series: Tumbleweeds [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HooahSergeant/pseuds/HooahSergeant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He told her that who they had been didn't matter anymore, and that they were all new, born again, getting a second chance at life. Even if it wasn't the life they would have chosen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Own not. Profit not. Sue not.

\---

O God of Earth and Altar,

bow down and hear our cry.

Our Earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die.

The walls of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide.

Take not thy thunder from us, but take away our pride.

G.K. Chesterton, 1906 'O God of Earth and Altar'

\---

Rachel would always remember that last sunset. It was practically burned into her memory. She could recall all the colors - purples, reds, oranges, and yellows - and if she closed her eyes she could almost feel the bite of the breeze and the smell of the city. If she managed to lose herself completely in the remembrance she would swear she could taste the bittersweetness of her favorite red wine lingering on her tongue, or the moisture of the air as she took in a deep breath before she sighed.

It was blissful, peaceful really, and she had been completely unaware and uncaring of anything else that might have been happening elsewhere. Rachel Berry, Broadway star, was only concerned in that moment with that moment. It had been perfect - picture perfect. The next morning would bring phone calls and performances and flashing lights and applause, but in the sunset she found something special, a closure to the good things of her day and a final goodbye to the bad.

It was the last time she ever felt completely safe and at peace, that day before the world erupted and fell into chaos.

Before the outbreak they now "jokingly" referred to as z-day.

Sunset had been her favorite time of day; she loved seeing the lights come on in the city, her city. That was when New York really came to life. Cars turned into rivers of yellow-white and red lights, like blood running through the veins of the city, and the buildings lit up and glittered like stars.

Like magic.

Sitting on the roof of her beloved, battered Bronco in the middle of a desert, she still found the sunset beautiful, but now in the way one would consider a prowling tiger to be. In her new world nighttime belonged to predators who roamed free, stalking through the wasted remains of humanity. It was not a time for people - for the living - anymore. Rachel had pretty good vision, but she couldn't see in the dark. None of them could. Instead she had to rely on her other senses when the light went out, especially her hearing - and she heard everything. Her damned ears were sensitive; it had been a gift when it came to music, but at night when monsters crept in thick shadows it was a curse. Her imagination could take anything and turn it into what she feared most. The slightest of sounds had her body flooding with adrenaline, muscles tensing close to the point of pain, because she knew and her body knew: stay alert, stay alive.

No one could ever be safe when the dead walked.

Reaching up, she shoved her aviators up to sit on top of her head and sighed heavily. In her other hand her one constant companion warmed her palm. For the longest time the pistol had felt foreign and absolutely wrong in her hands. She'd never liked guns, or violence, but since the outbreak she didn't feel right without one. Thankfully she'd learned to shoot fast enough to save her life and over time had become deadly accurate with her treasured nine millimeter. It had bothered her at first, her dependence on such an object. Like a child with a stuffed animal she carried it everywhere, slept with it, and loved it - even named it.

Soon enough it no longer bothered her.

Absentmindedly, she toyed with the weapon, ejecting the magazine and slamming it back home, over and over. The sound and feel of it was comforting, better than any lullaby. Click, slam! Click, slam!

Tonight the convoy was more subdued than normal. They'd lost another one at their disastrous last gas stop in cozy little Marathon, Texas. There were so few left, down to eleven counting her, and only three of those had been with her since the beginning. Right after she'd 'borrowed' the Bronco and started her way across the country.

Those days… she remembered them even more clearly than her time on Broadway. Endless hours spent driving, looking, and daydreaming about finding her friends and family. To be reunited with one familiar face, that was all she'd wanted. She just wanted to find one person who knew her, really knew her. Not just Rachel Berry, the actress. Those first few days she'd reminded herself of high school Rachel. She was different now, of course, smarter, harder, far less trusting, and certainly not as naive. She'd always been strong, she thought, but still a lot had changed. The desert had seen to that, slowly stripping and rebuilding her. The things that she'd seen - horrific, twisted things that even her worst nightmares couldn't compare to - had been too much for the Rachel Berry of Before. Her evolution had been painful, from the squeamish, spoiled diva to what she was now. She'd had to learn how to protect herself and those who had started to depend on her, and in the course found that her heart no longer sat on her sleeve for anyone to take a piece of. The fact that she couldn't save everyone had been a lesson very hard learned. No matter how many times over it she still couldn't keep from breaking down sobbing in the back of the Bronco after someone was lost. She tried to keep face around her people, wanting to be the strong, fearless leader for them, but it was something she still had to work on. After all she was still human, still Rachel, and part of her wasn't sure that completely losing her attachment to life was a great idea. How much could she amputate from her soul before she was nothing more than a shell of who she used to be? And what then would be the difference between her and the sorry creatures who hungered for them?

Five years had passed, five years full of tears and sweat and so much blood. Too much blood. A lot of it on her violence worn hands.

The only thing Rachel clung to, the only thing she really had left to cling to, was hope. It lingered on inside of her, fragile but persistent. It refused to die, struggling against the desolation of her situation. A light that would not go out.

She laid her pistol, Mick, against her stomach and rubbed her freed fingers against her sternum, using the contact to help rein her thoughts back in.

Her eyes strayed from the dying rays of sunlight to the huddle of bedraggled survivors around a small fire - her people, her family, her merry band of misfits. They were all filthy and tired, worn from the constant travel and beatings from both sun and sand. She knew them all, their names and their stories. The tallest of the figures was Ethan, the closest thing she had to a best friend. He reminded her of her father with his dark skin and rumbling voice. A towering bear of a man, Ethan had been a cop in Detroit; she'd picked him up and three others he'd saved. When she introduced herself as Rachel Berry, the singer, he'd taken her hand and said that she was a warrior, she just hadn't known it yet. He told her that who they had been didn't matter anymore, and that they were all new, born again, getting a second chance at life. Even if it wasn't the life they would have chosen.

At the time she'd wanted to scoff at his words. It had seemed a strange thing to say after just meeting someone, even if that someone had just saved your life from reanimated corpses. Now that conversation held a special place in her heart, and whenever she felt like a failure and wanted to scream to the heavens that she was just a fucking Broadway singer she would remember Ethan's words and the conviction with which he'd said them. He'd meant it, he still meant it, and Rachel loved him for it.

Rachel slid her palm up from her chest and rubbed at the back of her neck, wincing at the tension she felt there. Sleeping in the cab of the Bronco was not exactly the best thing for a person, nor was traveling endless hours with the constant tension they all had to deal with. Every day felt like it could be their last – because it could. It lead to more than body aches. Rachel was not immune to that either; she'd had her fair share of temper flare ups, though she hadn't done any "diva storm outs" in a long time. Ethan tended to sense an oncoming fit and steal her away from prying eyes so she could take it out on whatever they had handy. Sometimes she beat her Bronco with her fists, ranting and yelling until Ethan stopped her, and sometimes... sometimes he let her cry until she couldn't anymore. They all needed an outlet of some sort to keep them sane, something to keep them feeling alive, and when Rachel's threatened to drown her Ethan was her lifesaver pointing her back to shore.

Reminding her of her true outlet.

"Imagine there's no Heaven," Rachel sang softly, letting the stress fall away as she lost herself in her music. "It's easy if you try. No Hell below us, above us only sky..."

"Rachel?"

Her voice tapered off as she bent over the edge of her perch, smiling tiredly down at Kevin. He was a tiny waif of a man, the most ridiculous and complete cliché of a computer technician.

"That's my name."

"Are you going to eat tonight?" His blue eyes looked so hopeful, and she caught the worry in his voice.

"I suppose if I say no you'll just guilt me into it," she responded with an exaggerated eye roll. They were running low on food - they both knew it - and she'd gone to skipping meals to make sure that everyone else could eat. She was certain that she could spare it, and the children in their group needed it more anyway. With a huff she slipped her long, jean clad legs over the side and pushed herself off the roof. The sand caught her and she held her arms up like an Olympic gymnast after sticking a perfect ten landing.

"I give it a three," Kevin said, holding on to his glasses as he nimbly dodged her playful punch.

"Whatever, hater. Lead me to the food."

Their food consisted of whatever canned goods they could scavenge; there was no such thing as "fresh" anything anymore. Rachel had winced at every meal for a long time, unaccustomed to eating like that. It had wreaked havoc on her for quite some time, but veganism was a luxury she simply didn't have any more.

Still, she took her can with a small smile for Kevin and wandered back to her vehicle, waving at the troop of kids playing with a ragged soccer ball.

With her dinner opened (pork 'n beans, she'd noted with a sigh) she sat back against a tire and rubbed at her arms. Having never been in a desert before she'd been rather unhappy to learn that it was actually quite cold at night, and sometimes even during the day if the wind kicked up enough. She didn't know what season they were in, but summer seemed out of the question with how fucking chilly it got. Her jacket was inside on the passenger seat where she'd left it the night before, leaving her in her once white tank top to face the chill.

Rolling her eyes at herself she shook her head and then began to yank her hair back into a ponytail. Forget about her fancy hair products and other hygiene items, hair ties were precious things. She'd nearly cried in frustration after breaking her last one. Her hair had gotten long and even though they trimmed it as best they could with an old pair of scissors it was still a lot; she hated getting the strands of ebony in her food.

Especially in the pork 'n beans. That smell lingered and they didn't exactly have access to showers or enough water to waste on something as simple as getting clean. Unless it was absolutely necessary, they waited for rain storms or sometimes streams, rivers, or creeks - any body of water really - to bathe.

With a tilt of her head Rachel dumped some of her orangey colored "dinner" into her mouth and didn't bother with chewing, just swallowing as quickly as possible. It may not twist her stomach in knots any more, but that didn't mean it tasted any better. The can became empty a lot faster than she'd anticipated and instead of satisfaction at a full stomach, she felt only guilt.

Always with the guilt. Her meager meal could have been saved to feed someone else as their supplies dwindled. They'd have to try and find another place to search for food soon, and when they did the chances of losing another person were high. No matter how careful they were it was a probability that she couldn't avoid, and the worst part was the thought that it would mean one less starving belly.

Her mood fell further as she scowled at the empty can in her hand, hurling it as far away from her as she could launch it.

"Hey, Xena," Ollie greeted as he cautiously approached. She jumped and sheepishly wiggled her fingers at him, hoping he hadn't seen her disagreement with her dinner. He ruffled his curly hair and then pulled the Yankees cap snugly back over the unruly nest. "You ready for your performance?"

"I was born ready," she quipped automatically. Accepting the hand he held down towards her she let him pull her up to her feet.

Ollie was referring to the broadcast they made every time they stopped to make camp. He had a mobile radio set up in his fifteen passenger van and Rachel felt that they should take the time to reach out to any others who might still be fighting to survive. It had worked, too. They'd picked up five who'd heard their transmissions and come running for the small beacon of hope.

If there was one thing that had stayed always constant in her life, it was her love of music. She'd never stopped singing. Lyrics remained in her memory while other things slipped away. She sang at night sometimes, around the fire while everyone ate, and it was Ethan who'd suggested she sing over the radio.

Never able to back down from an opportunity to share her voice, she'd readily agreed, and now she did every night. They'd send their initial message: where they were, where they were headed the next day, and an invitation to join them, and then Rachel would sing.

She hoped that the music might bring some form of comfort to anyone who could hear it.

"What's the song tonight boys?" she asked with more enthusiasm than necessary.

"Becca asked for 'Amazing Grace'," Ollie said, inclining his head towards the young girl on the far side of camp.

"I can do that." Rachel climbed into the van after him and rubbed her hands together. "One of these days if we can find a notebook and pen, I should write some lyrics down. We could have our very own Hymnal of the Apocalypse."

Ollie snorted, fiddling with the radio. "Rhianna never appeared in any Hymn book I've ever seen."

"Pity," Rachel murmured as he handed her the microphone. "If there's anyone out there listening to this we can help you. Our current position is..."

\---

TBC...


	2. Chapter One

In his life Before, Andrew had lived in Las Vegas. Beautiful, trashy, wonderful Las Vegas – back Before - before the city had died and the desert buried it like some long lost Egyptian city.

He hadn’t been rich or all that important, but he’d loved his life. Playing piano in a swanky little bar hadn’t done much more than pay the bills and his tab... it had been enough though. He’d gotten to do something he honestly loved - and then there were the girls to consider. God, they were everywhere.

It had been perfect, and Andrew had never had any intention of leaving behind the glitter of Vegas.

Until, like in that stupid movie – the latest and greatest zombie, end of the world whatever – fucking zombies had ruined everything. Except, unlike in the movies, it was very real; his neighbor really was snacking on the pizza delivery guy instead of the Domino’s pepperoni he’d ordered.

Andrew had survived and spent a year by himself, mostly, first getting his ass the hell out of Vegas and then holing up in whatever ‘safe’ place he could find while scavenging what he could. He wasn’t Rambo or even that badass chick from the zombie movie. He was just Andrew the piano man, looking out for numero uno. That had worked out for awhile, and then Rachel Berry and her convoy had showed up and he thought he’d finally gotten lucky.

But now - sitting in the desert with only the moon for light and in a dugout on lookout duty - now he wondered for the millionth time if he’d made the right choice.

Sure, he was safer now, traveling in numbers, and there was more food (or there had been), but as time went on he found himself hating the convoy more than appreciating it. Traveling all day, cooped up with a bunch of other dirty people, sweating his balls off under the sun, only to make camp, sleep for a few hours and then do it all over again. He hated it, missed the freedom and selfishness he was afforded when it was just him looking out for himself. More than that, he couldn’t stand being bossed around by Rachel and her ‘leader’ group. He wasn’t a soldier, had no desire to be one either, and all this trench digging and following orders business was seriously grating.

The pipsqueak was loud and, yeah, maybe kind of intimidating, but he’d gotten to where the sound of her voice made him start imagining her death. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how Rachel had gotten to be the ‘big boss’ around the convoy. The woman was a singer, and everyone treated her like she was some warrior goddess from another planet.

“Andrew, dig a hole to sit in. Andrew, we’re going to need you to risk your life staying up all night to watch for zombies. Andrew, make sure to scream really loud when the zombies start to eat you so we can save our asses. You don’t mind, do you?” he mumbled sleepily and propped his bristly jaw up on his palm. He glanced over at the circle of vehicles, and glared when his gaze landed on Rachel’s Bronco at the head. She was probably asleep, snoring and maybe drooling, curled up on the bench seat all comfortable and warm. Andrew snorted and turned his attention back to the never ending expanse of desert before him. The wind happened to pick up just as he did and he caught an eyeful of gritty sand. Cursing under his breath he blinked rapidly and resisted the urge to rub. Rubbing made it worse; he’d learned that first hand. Tears filled his eyes and he pressed his shirt gently against them, hoping they would flush out on their own. He didn’t want to waste water.

When the stinging finally became bearable again he squinted through heavy eyelids back out on the plane. Still nothing.

Of course there was nothing. They were in the fucking desert.

Andrew caught himself just as his head started to bob, sleep threatening to drag him under whether he wanted it or not.

Damn Rachel Berry and her surveillance shifts or whatever she called them. It was like some form of psychological, brainwashing torture.

His eyelids drooped and he decided he could get away with a few seconds of rest. A cat nap. It’s not like anyone was going to catch him and the desert was as empty as it always was. He would have bet his life that it would stay that way all night – so he could afford some shut eye. There was no danger out here, no matter what Rachel thought. Just tumbleweeds and the occasional ground squirrel thing.

Checking the convoy one more time, to make sure nobody was checking on him, he sighed and dipped his chin down to his chest. Smirking as his eyes closed, he promised himself it was only for a couple of minutes.

\---

The first gunshot had Rachel bolting upright in the cab of her truck, mind clear, sharp and focused, like she’d gotten more than a couple of hours of nightmare plagued sleep. At the second she was already scooping Mick up from the floorboard and rolling out of the Bronco directly into Hell.

It was complete chaos. People were screaming, running, guns were going off left and right – it sounded like popcorn. But the flash of the muzzles and the screams and shouts of her people did not remind her of movie nights.

“Ethan?” She yelped and ducked as a bullet went whizzing past her head. “Ethan!”

“Rachel, here!”

She jerked and squinted in the moonlight, and finally caught sight of Ethan crouched against the grille of his dusty Suburban, a troop of terrified children huddled close behind him. Rachel scrambled out from the relative cover of the driver side door and pitched herself towards him. “The fuck?” she asked rather poignantly.

“Scavengers.” Ethan growled through gritted teeth. He popped up over the hood of the vehicle and fired off a few more rounds, a chorus of yelps and groans answering the crack of the rifle. Rachel peeked around and winced as shadowy figures swarmed the truck where they kept their food. She brought Mick around and squeezed the trigger. Two figures dropped. Her heart jumped into her throat, threatening to strangle her, when she saw two more shadowy shapes pulling a shrieking woman from the van.

Setting her jaw she turned her face up to Ethan. “Put the kids in the car and get out of here.”

“Rachel…”

“Take them and go,” she ordered, pinning him in place with a hard glare.

Satisfied the he would do as told, Rachel set her sights back on the woman being dragged away by her hair. Biting into her lip she edged her way around the car and fired again, unsurprised to hear Ethan’s rifle go off beside her offering covering fire. She gladly accepted the brief help and took off crouched low, cradling her pistol. She fired again, hands steady around the familiar grip and felt, more than heard, the chamber lock back. Out of ammo. She’d managed to hit one of her targets and she didn’t even spare him a glance as she kept after the hulking mass dragging a member of her convoy. Shoving Mick back into the holster strapped to her thigh she pushed herself into a sprint, closing the gap between herself and the barbaric bastard. Tossing herself onto his back they hit the sand, and Rachel felt her teeth click together as her nose smashed into his shoulder blades. She groaned, laying flat on top of the stunned man. When she turned her head she saw the other woman nearby staring at her with wide eyes.

“Run!” 

He was so much bigger than her and most likely armed, and she knew if he made it to his feet he’d easily overpower and kill her. Slapping at her thigh, she searched for her Ka-Bar but came up empty handed, realizing in the fleeting moment that it was still sitting on the dash in her car.

Adrenaline urged her to flee, but something else - something stronger - had taken hold.

Anger.

Rachel clasped her hands together and brought them down with all the force and weight she could, slamming her fists down at the base of the scavenger’s neck. He fell back down with a grunt and she scrambled to her feet, lashing out with her foot and aiming at his face. The toe of her boot connected with a satisfying crunch.

Her nose was bleeding - she could feel it running, hot and sticky, down her face, mixing with the dirt and leaving grit in her mouth. She spit a mouthful of coppery tasting sludge and drew her foot back to kick again. 

He reached out too fast for her to avoid and grabbed her ankle, yanking with a steely grip. Her breath left her in an explosive whoosh as her back collided with the ground and she gasped, trying in vain to get air back into her body as he flopped on top of her.

She tried to crawl backwards out from under him but he pinned her hips to the ground and then sat on her stomach, effectively trapping her. Rachel threw a vicious cross, her attacker merely leaning out of range of her fist and then capturing her wrists, slamming them down above her head and using one meaty paw to clasp both and keep her from trying to punch or claw at him again. She didn’t scream or shout, knowing it wouldn’t do any good at all. Struggling to get a hand free she pitched her hips up, trying to throw him off balance or off of her in general, the only sounds escaping her mouth grunts and growls of exertion and fury. 

He reached down at his waist and pulled a wicked looking hunting knife from his belt. Rachel’s stomach plummeted as she eyed the nasty curve of the gut hook gleaming at her in the moonlight, and she screwed her eyes tightly shut, waiting for the white hot pain to light up her senses.

“Hey!” 

Rachel jerked at the voice – she knew that voice – and opened her eyes just in time to see a woman slap the man on top of her with a shovel. It rang dully as it bashed against his head, and he dropped off of her with a groan. 

But her savior wasn’t done, turning and bringing the shovel down again, swinging it like an axe. Rachel had to look away as the blows continued and the wet sound made her want to gag.

When the noises ceased she peered up again and froze.

“Quinn?” 

“Rachel?”

Rachel licked at her chapped lips and tried to figure out something to say in response, but then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and could only shout, “Ethan, no!” a second too late.

The butt of his rifle had already connected solidly with Quinn’s temple. 

 

\---

It was like being in a time-warp. Seeing Quinn Fabray appear had thrown her back into the past as surely as a time machine.

Sure, Quinn was older, dirtier, than the memories Rachel hung on to, but she was still Quinn. There was no mistaking those features. Hell, everyone in the convoy was likely to recognize her from the stupid, tattered, sun-bleached billboards they drove past that boasted Quinn’s face -- promoting her latest and greatest film. It was different for Rachel. So different. When she saw those billboards she didn’t think of a movie star, or lament over the fact that they’d never see the sequel to Quinn Fabray’s last movie. She thought of cheerleaders, red and white skirts, annoyingly effortless grace and elegance... Then her thoughts would taper and she’d chase them around her head like Alice after the White Rabbit. Hazel eyes that could spear you in an instant and make you quake with fear, but also held the power to weaken your knees and steal your breath with the bottomless sadness they could project. She’d think of pink hair and babies with perfect blonde curls. Sometimes she thought of Sharpie markers and embarrassing bathroom graffiti, and invariably a softly sung duet.

Crouched in the back of the Bronco right next to Quinn’s shoulders, Rachel shook her head to clear out the cobwebs of the past and carefully sat down to take the stress off her legs. She hadn’t expected Quinn to be out so long, but Ethan had apparently hit her harder than she’d thought. Her fingers twitched in her lap, itching to touch that bruise blossoming on the side of Quinn’s face; somehow she doubted the gesture would be appreciated should sleeping beauty decide to wake at the caress of calloused fingers. Rachel sighed and rolled her head back, palm against the base of her neck until she felt and heard a satisfying crack and settled back to wait some more.

Quinn’s people had protested rather heatedly when Rachel had Ethan move Quinn into the Bronco. They stood a good distance away crowded around the front of their beat up Silverado, all with their arms crossed – Rachel could feel them glaring even across the distance.

But she didn’t care - not in the slightest - how they felt about the situation. Not when someone she knew from Before was here, not a figment but actually physically present. She’d be damned before she let them take Quinn away and drive off into the horizon.

Fuck that.

There were only three of them, two lanky men and a woman who looked even shorter than Rachel herself, but they were armed to the teeth and better equipped than anyone Rachel had come across in a long time. Kevin was keeping an eye on them and the rest of the group was giving them a lot of space, but Rachel couldn’t bring herself to be intimidated. Quinn was with them, after all, so as badass as they were playing things she figured they weren’t going to be any trouble at all.

“Rachel, this is a bad idea,” Ethan said, announcing his presence as he came around the Bronco. His gaze remained trained on the three fuming survivors as he spoke, ever the protector.

“You hit her in the head with a rifle, Ethan.” Rachel shot him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye before returning her attention to Quinn.

“Yes, I did. I thought she was going to kill you.” He winced and turned to regard Rachel, who was still watching Quinn with a hopeful look, pointedly ignoring him. “What I meant was… we should have just given her back to them with an apology. We don’t need to go making enemies.”

“I know her,” Rachel barely breathed, hardly able to believe it herself, saying it aloud just made it more surreal. She knew this person.

“We all know her,” Ethan grumbled and shrugged his massive shoulders. “It’s Quinn Fabray, big time, bad-ass action movie actress extraordinaire.”

Rachel snorted and swiped at the sweat gathering at her hairline. “No, I mean I know know her. We went to school together.”

“You went to school with Quinn Fabray?” 

“A long time ago, a lifetime ago.” Rachel smirked at the incredulity in his tone, already replaying various past memories. “She actually probably did want to kill me a couple of times back then, but we were friends.”

“You realize that sounds ridiculous? Two of the biggest names in the entertainment industry went to the same tiny school in Nowhere, Ohio?”

“It may sound crazy, but it’s the truth.” A traitorous hand moved before Rachel could catch herself and her fingertips grazed through the smear of dirt along Quinn’s cheek. 

Quinn mumbled and twitched at the contact, just as Rachel predicted she would. Hazel eyes slowly opened to half mast and then flew fully open as Quinn jerked awake. Rachel grimaced, grabbing Quinn’s shoulders to keep her from moving too much, too soon. “Quinn,” she said, thrilled to hear that name come out of her mouth - so thrilled in fact that she had to say it again. “Quinn, slow down. You took a nasty blow to the head, just be still for a second.”

A deep groan passed Quinn’s lips and she lifted her hand to her temple, no doubt seeking the source of one hell of a headache. “Good thing he didn’t want to waste a bullet,” she grunted, squeezing her eyes shut again with a whimper. “Fuck, my head is going to explode.”

Rachel took a deep breath. “Ethan, please go tell them that she’s awake now.”

“Sure. And when they demand that we release the hostage?”

“Just do it,” Rachel demanded, watching Quinn’s eyes blink heavily a couple of times.

“Rachel?” Quinn moved her jaw back and forth, as though the name felt funny and foreign to say. Rachel could relate. “Rachel Berry?”

“Hello, Quinn,” Rachel said, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“I thought I imagined you,” Quinn said and struggled to sit up on her elbows, squinting over in Rachel’s direction. “Fucking small world.” She let out a huff, reaching out to briefly poke a finger into Rachel’s shoulder.

“Smaller now,” Rachel replied, snorting. “I have this odd urge to ask how you’ve been, but I think I know the answer.”

Quinn rubbed slow, little circles against her temples. “I’m not sure how one makes small talk in times like these. Beautiful weather we’re having?”

Laughter bubbled up in Rachel’s chest and she covered her mouth to keep it contained to a light chuckle with some effort. “Can’t complain... though the lack of sunscreen is problematic.”

“Q, you alright?” A low voice interrupted and Rachel quickly spun, her hand seeking Mick automatically but stopping before she even made contact. The dead didn’t speak, or ask how someone was doing. She found herself almost nose to nose with the burliest of Quinn’s group, his hard brown eyes daring her to shy away from their proximity. Rachel set her jaw and before she knew what she was doing she’d redirected her hand and set it possessively on Quinn’s shin.

“Yeah, Chevy,” Quinn cleared her throat and sat up further, pulling her leg away from Rachel’s grasp as she folded them under her. “I don’t suppose we have any aspirin left?”

The man, ‘Chevy’, grunted and leaned around Rachel to take a closer look at Quinn’s head. “You wish. That big lug got you pretty good, huh?”

Rachel stiffened but Quinn placed a hand on her knee and her retort died in her throat, all her focus on the strong, warm grip.

“Chevy I’d like you to meet Rachel. Rachel this is Chevy.” Quinn waved between the glowering pair with her free hand; she squeezed the other still on Rachel’s knee. “Rachel and I went to high school together.”

“John Chevalier,” he said, warily stretching a gloved hand out to Rachel – the other stayed on the M4 slung tight across his chest. “Call me Chevy.”

“The other two,” Quinn said, inclining her head towards the swiftly approaching figures. “Luz and Alex.”

“Yeah, hi, whatever. Q, can we please get the fuck out of here?” Luz said as soon as she was within earshot. She narrowed her eyes down at Quinn’s hand on Rachel’s leg and quirked an eyebrow.

Quinn slid her hand away from Rachel and started scooting towards the tailgate.

“You got someplace to be?” Ethan asked, sarcasm practically dripping from the words.

“We do actually, and this pit-stop, fun and adventurous as it was, isn’t on the schedule. Q, we need to go,” Alex said.

“Where are you going?” Rachel asked before she could think about it. All she knew was Quinn was close to leaving, close to disappearing from her life again. Everyone else she knew in the world was gone and the thought of watching Quinn drive off made her stomach twist up.

“Rachel,” Ethan grumbled, stilling her forward movement with a gentle hand on her shoulder. She hadn’t even realized that she’d pitched forward, like she was going to chase Quinn across the sand. “Let them go.”

Thankfully, Quinn hesitated and turned back to Rachel. Those eyes seemed to peer directly into Rachel’s soul, hauntingly familiar, and she felt something flutter in her stomach, not nerves but something else – something she hadn’t felt in far too long.

“Where are you going, Quinn?” Rachel repeated more directly, far too focused on other things to think about what she might be saying or how vulnerable she sounded. 

“Are you staying here?” Quinn asked softly, not looking at her group as they made various noises of disapproval. 

Rachel bobbed her head in a short nod, “We have to – there are some... things to be done today before we can leave.”

It didn’t need to be said, not with the bodies wrapped in meager blankets resting in the sand a few paces away. They would bury their dead and only then move on. There wasn’t much they could do to prevent death, not in the world they were in, but Rachel was adamant that they pay their respects. She couldn’t and wouldn’t leave her friends behind to be picked at by animals and the once-human creatures that chased them.

Quinn frowned and finally acknowledged her comrades. “You guys can go. I’m staying to help... choice is yours.”

“Fuck, Q, you think we’d leave you?” Chevy barked, scrubbing at his dirty neck. “This is stupid but you’re one of us.”

She was more than that though, and Rachel could see it. These hardened people followed Quinn – much like the masses at McKinley had. 

Yet another thing that time and circumstance hadn’t managed to change. Quinn Fabray was a leader, always had been and always would be. No matter how much she may not want it.

“Thank you,” Quinn said and inclined her head back towards their truck. “Get settled, get some food. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Not sure we should leave you here by yourself,” Alex said, eyeing Ethan. “What if the blind one hits you in the head again?”

Rachel bristled at that, ready to defend Ethan, but Quinn beat her to it.

“It was an accident - we all have those. I’m fine and I don’t need you to babysit me,” she said firmly, reclaiming her seat on the tailgate. “Make yourselves useful and get the shovels out of the back.”

Alex and Chevy shared a look and both shrugged before trudging off. Only Luz stayed behind, still boring a burning hole into Rachel, lip curled up like a feral dog. 

“Lu, for fuck’s sake,” Quinn snapped. “I appreciate the loyalty but tiny here isn’t going to hurt me.”

“The longer we stay here the more danger you put all of us in,” Luz snarled back. “If you want to risk your life and time for an impromptu high school reunion that’s on you, but you’re putting all of us in jeopardy.” 

“I know you’re bitter because of what you’ve lost,” Quinn growled, hand once again on Rachel’s knee. “We’ve all lost. Don’t resent me for this. I know you’re in a hurry – we’re all in a hurry to get one more day. We will leave, but maybe if you could calm down and ditch the jealousy you’d see that this could be good for all of us. When was the last time we saw other people? Living, breathing, struggling people. You want to have a bitch fest we can do that later. Just not now.”

Luz’s face hardened even further and she lashed out suddenly, punching the side of Rachel’s Bronco before storming off in the direction of the truck, spitting out a swift stream of Spanish as she went.

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said quietly to both Ethan and Rachel. “I’m sure you know what living like this does to people. She’ll warm up eventually. They all will.”

Ethan pursed his lips, and then said, “It’s alright, we’re all teetering on the edge out here. It was nice to meet you, Quinn, and I’m very sorry about the knock to the head.”

“No blood, no foul,” Quinn said with a raised eyebrow and playful lilt to her gravelly voice. She shook Ethan’s hand and then he too left them to their own devices after a quick ruffle of Rachel’s hair. 

“Where did you meet them?” Rachel couldn’t help but ask, still watching Luz throw her tantrum with something akin to admiration. That was one hell of a diva storm-out if ever she saw one.

“Luz is actually a Super Stallion pilot out of Miramar,” Quinn explained and shook her head. “That’s, um, a really big helicopter the Marines use. Chevy is an Army Ranger and Alex is Air Force TACP. The three of them met in Iraq and have been attached at the hip since. I got lucky and ran in to them on my way back to... to Lima.”

Rachel swallowed hard at the mention of home and the brutal memories that she did her best to keep away from during the day. It was bad enough to have them plague her nightmares; she didn’t need them dragging her down while she was awake as well. “You went back to Lima?”

“Of course I did,” Quinn said, her expression so tight that Rachel automatically reacted and put her hand on top of Quinn’s and squeezed. “You didn’t?”

“First place I went,” Rachel admitted and exhaled hard through her nose as her eyes screwed shut. “So, you’re a long way from Ohio. Where are you going?”

“We’re going to the coast.” Quinn swiped a drop of sweat off her nose and smiled a lopsided smile that threatened to break Rachel’s heart completely. “The plan is to commandeer a freighter, or something, and then we’ll go from there.”

“A freighter? How the hell are you going to do that?” Rachel didn’t want to sound incredulous but… “Did you learn to captain freight ships in your spare time in Hollywood?”

“There are ships out there dead in the water because the crew... We just have to get out to one and then we’ll figure it out.” Quinn shrugged, staring down at where their hands were clasped together. “Rachel, come with us?”

Some small part of her had been waiting for those words, for that invitation, but hearing it outside her own head knocked Rachel for a loop. She sucked in a deep breath and held it until her lungs ached and her heart threatened to beat right out of her chest. Her first instinct was ‘yes’, unequivocally, forever ‘yes’. Because it hurt so badly to think that Quinn could just leave. They might never have been close friends but any connection with the past was sacred now. It was so precious a thing to have someone who wasn’t a stranger near. Rachel couldn’t let go of her; she never had been able to, not even after High School – some small part of her had wondered about Quinn Fabray and here she was, finally asking Rachel to be a part of her life. Perhaps not in the context that Rachel had wished for, and maybe it had taken the end of the world to actually bring them together, but it was enough. It would have to be.

“Yes,” Rachel said and nodded again, beaming when Quinn’s face broke into a full smile. “I have to talk to my people though. They’re my family now and I can’t just leave them here without offering this idea to them.”

“I understand,” Quinn agreed and waved her free hand through the air. “We could honestly use all the help we can get, not just in making it to the coast. It’s going to take more than four of us to run a ship. We were hoping that we might be able to reach out to any other survivors, offer them a place with us. Who knows, maybe we could start a new colony. Rebuild the human race.”

“Those are wonderful aspirations, Quinn.” Rachel hummed and raised her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. “Let me brief the troops, okay? They’ve been through a lot today already. I’ll have an answer for you by nightfall.”

“Do you want some help with the… we have some shovels,” Quinn said, eyes flickering over Rachel’s shoulder to the bundled bodies. 

“If you wouldn’t mind the hard labor,” Rachel whispered, feeling the first sting of tears for her fallen friends. She’d had Quinn distracting her from it, but now there was no escaping what had to be done next. It would be another sleepless, tear-filled night. 

“Living is hard labor,” Quinn said bluntly and squeezed Rachel’s knee again before hopping off the tailgate.

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed, watching Quinn stride towards the Silverado from behind the safety of her sunglasses. Licking at her chapped lips she too slid off the tailgate and headed towards the small gaggle formation of her survivors, feeling guilty for the hope that made her steps feel lighter.

\---

TBC...


	3. Chapter Two

Quinn had been in New York taping an interview for her upcoming film when it happened. She’d been sitting in her hotel room, wet hair wrapped in a towel, phone to her ear and a smile on her face. Beth had been chattering on and on about school and how excited she was about getting to visit Quinn in Los Angeles that summer.

She’d been making mental notes to visit all the places Beth was asking about when the flickering television had caught her attention. Cutting her short, she’d promised to talk to her soon.

She’d lied.

At first Quinn had thought the whole thing to be a hoax of some sort, or that it was some other thing that the media was over-sensationalizing like always. After all, she starred in a series of action movies based around a zombie apocalypse and she knew that zombies were nothing more than terrifying movie monsters.   
Slow moving, bumbling monsters who could easily be avoided or dispatched if necessary. 

Now she knew better. 

When reality snuck up on her – when she saw the streams of people dropping everything and running, when she heard the screams and gunfire – there was only one thing on her mind. The call to Shelby was immediate, and she assured her that Beth was fine, if a little frightened. The infection hadn’t reached them yet but they were packing up and leaving for Shelby’s parents place back in Ohio. Quinn agreed to meet them there and Shelby hung up before she had the chance to ask to speak to Beth.

She tried not to think about it now, to keep the what-if’s at bay, but every time she closed her eyes she thought about her baby. About broken promises and trips they hadn’t gone on. Birthday gifts she’d never delivered. Birthdays Beth wouldn’t ever get to have.

Her dreams had been tame as of late, as benign as they could be considering. Or maybe she’d simply adjusted to the normal slew of nightmares. She hadn’t dreamt of Beth or her mother or anyone she had known. When she woke up she was in the back of the truck with Luz, her head pillowed on one of their many packs and Chevy blinking at her from around the front seat, his palm warm on her knee.

“How’s your noggin?”

“I’m hoping it will hatch soon,” Quinn joked roughly, shaking off the last vestiges of sleep and carefully probing at the goose-egg.

“You sure about going with them?” Alex asked from the driver’s seat, drawing her attention from Chevy to the activity going on outside their vehicle. She spotted Rachel in the gray dawn light darting from vehicle to vehicle, her wiry little body so different from what Quinn remembered. But it was still Rachel, and now that   
Quinn knew that she couldn’t seem to stop her eyes from seeking out her old classmate to watch her every move.

“Yeah,” she answered distractedly, shaking her head to break her focus.

Rachel’s convoy had voted unanimously to follow them to the coast; as Rachel had said to her after, they were all searching some kind of hope for the future and they’d found it in Quinn’s plan.

It was more pressure to add to the weight already bowing Quinn’s back. More mouths to feed, more names to learn – more people to get to know only to have them die. If there was only one lesson that Quinn had learned it was that people left, and in the place she found herself now they didn’t just decide to leave of their own volition. They were taken. Violently. For that reason alone she didn’t want to know them, even as she craved the connection. Something as simple as names to go with faces or as complex as their individual stories. They would be different and yet similar in the worst of ways. There wasn’t a single person alive who hadn’t faced loss. They were all soldiers now in a war they had no choice but to fight. Fight or surrender to the horrible teeth, claws, and endless hunger of the damned.

“You’re doing that spacey thing again,” Luz rumbled next to her, dark brown eyes narrowed to slits against the sun’s glare.

“Sorry, I’ll try to think less,” Quinn quipped, turning to curl her lip up as she scrutinized Luz bedraggled appearance. “You look awful.”

It had the desired effect, Luz barked a short laugh. “And you look like Sunday morning, gorgeous,” she shot back, puckering her lips in the mockery of a kiss. “Oh baby, oh baby.”

“You want me to do your hair and makeup for that red carpet appearance, Hollywood?” Alex snarked from the safety of his seat, out of reach of one of Quinn’s well delivered smacks. 

“I hate all of you.” Quinn sighed, glaring at each of them in turn. Honestly, her fame had seemed more annoying than anything after the Incident. She hated seeing her face on billboards like never before, but it did provide endless fodder for jokes at her expense and she actually welcomed that, strangely enough.   
Anything that could bring some sort of levity to their Tolkien-esque quest she would embrace with open arms. 

A flurry of movement out of the corner of her eye pulled her attention from her joking friends, and once again she found herself watching Rachel. An idea struck along with a painful squeeze to her heart. “I think I’ll just go where I know I’m welcome.”

Chevy followed the direction of her stare and shook his head as he realized the current object of her obvious obsession. “Wow. Fine. Abandon us common folk for her royal snootiness; go on. You famous people gotta stick together I guess. Don’t worry, we know when we’re being cast aside.”

Quinn could tell he was teasing, mostly, but there was an undercurrent of warning in his tone that she was simultaneously flattered and annoyed by.

“I’m a grown up,” she reminded him flatly. “I don’t need your approval.”

“It’s cool, Q, we get it,” Alex commented. “Well, I get it.”

“Yeah, speak for yourself,” Luz snarled, arms crossed across her chest. “I certainly don’t understand your infatuation with she-Gollum.”

Biting back the urge to remind Luz of her jealousy, Quinn instead gripped her trusty sawed off shotgun with one hand and opened up her door with the other, hopping out into the blazing sand. “That’s your first nerdy reference of the day, Lu; don’t think I’m going to stop keeping track just because your vitriol is no longer directed at me.”

“Oooh, big words – I hit a sore spot,” Luz snapped, but her eyes were softer when they locked back on   
Quinn’s. A small smile tweaked at her lips and Quinn inclined her head slightly: apology accepted. “Get out of here, Encyclopedia Blonde, before I knock your ass out and stow you in the back with the rest of the junk.”

Quinn held up two fingers. “That’s two, nerd.” She shut the door before Luz could fire back, grinning as she heard Chevy laughing and Luz ranting. Luz flipped her off, hand smacking against the glass, and Quinn leaned forward, making a big show of leaving a lip mark as she smooched the window. 

“You still have your walkie, so when shit happens and you need me to rescue you expect payback, puta,” Luz’s voice crackled from Quinn’s hip.

With an exaggerated eye roll Quinn turned away from the truck that had been her mobile home for months and waved them off as she headed towards the dusty black Bronco at the front of the line of vehicles. With each step her heart climbed a little higher up her throat, anticipation mixing with anxiety had her doubting her choice the closer she got.

Luz would never let her live it down if she went running back now and Quinn wasn’t in the habit of backing down from things that scared her. Not anymore. So with a greedy gulp of hot air she yanked on the door handle and heaved herself inside the Bronco without another thought of running away. The tan leather, well worn and cracked with heat, creaked underneath her as she slid onto the bench seat and closed the heavy door behind her. 

Rachel wasn’t back yet from securing everyone else – it gave Quinn time to think up an excuse for her inviting herself into Rachel’s domain. She nodded to herself when she had a good enough cover story thought up and then decided to take a quick inventory of her surroundings. After all, one could never be too careful and knowing all the exits, even in a vehicle, was a must.

The Bronco looked like the inside of most of the vehicles Quinn had been in since the Incident. The cab was clear of junk but the back was filled with supplies. Curious, she reached over the seat and dug into the nearest bag, finding all kinds of batteries. That only further piqued her interest, and she reached for the bigger, military sea bag next to it and had to bend her entire torso over the seat to use both hands and open it. She found clothes in that one. They even smelled vaguely clean.

“I’m the miscellaneous supply,” Rachel explained from the now open driver side door, smirking when Quinn jerked at the sound. “Did you need something?”

Quinn slowly relaxed, her finger sliding away from the trigger on her shotgun. “No, sorry for snooping, I’m actually here to be your GPS.”

“So you’ll be telling me to turn the wrong way down one-way streets and most likely lead me into a lake?”   
Rachel asked, grunting under her breath as she pulled herself into the driver’s seat.

“I loved that episode of ‘The Office’,” Quinn commented, settling back in her seat with a rueful smile. “And if I manage to find a lake in this lake of fire we’re currently in, I will gladly steer you in its direction.”

“I’d settle for a pond.” Rachel sighed. “Are you really here to be my guide? No other reason?”

“I may have some ulterior motives,” Quinn replied honestly, soaking in Rachel’s presence much like she would gladly wallow in a dank pond at the moment.

Rachel nodded slowly, turning the key and smiling at the sound of the Bronco roaring to life. Truth be told, she’d been thinking about how she could get Quinn to agree to ride with her. Having someone from Before back in her life was the most terrifyingly amazing thing one could dare to hope for. She was flat out unable to deal with the thought of losing that tangible connection, fragile as it may be, to her old life. It had been a pleasant surprise to see Quinn gone from the Silverado and she’d allowed herself to get excited at the prospect of being near the other woman all day. “I expect nothing less of you.”

Smirking to herself, Quinn adjusted her sunglasses and pried her walkie from her hip. “Alex, you’ve got the back end.”

“Goody,” came the quick reply.

Lifting her own radio, Rachel cleared her throat lightly and looked up into the rearview mirror. “Ethan, Ollie, Kevin – ready boys?”

“Can we stop at Starbucks?” Ollie sent back, the perfect touch of whine to his voice. “I want a Venti soy chai latte!”

“No, sorry, if you’re nice I’ll give you some coffee grounds to suck on when we set up camp,” Rachel chuckled. Across from her Quinn gasped and reached over to snag Rachel’s wrist.

“You have coffee grounds?”

“I’ll share,” Rachel promised. “Let’s go boys. Eyes open for trouble.” Shoving the Bronco into gear, Rachel paused to shoot Quinn a wide grin. “Giddy up?”

Quinn wrinkled her nose but waved her hand out at the open expanse of desert. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

\---

They’d been driving in what was surprisingly comfortable silence for a few hours, though it was loaded and both women could feel the weight of it between them. Rachel’s hands remained steady on the steering wheel, holding the squirrely vehicle true as they plowed through the desert leaving a sandy wake behind them. She risked another glance at Quinn, tongue heavy with questions she wanted to ask, regardless of how silly they seemed to her. Quinn was looking out the passenger window, one fist curled under her chin and the other cradling the walkie in her lap. It was strange to see her like that, again. She’d always been somewhat withdrawn in school – nose buried in a book or thoughts clearly off somewhere else. 

Rachel had always hoped they were off somewhere better. Still hoped.

She had no opening line, really, to start a conversation with Quinn, and she fumbled a little longer, bottom lip caught in her teeth. One of them would eventually break the stalemate between them, she was sure of that, but at this point what she didn’t know was how. It wasn’t like they’d run into each other in New York or L. A. or even back in Lima, but now… now they were in the middle of godforsaken nowhere and the situation was less than ideal for a ‘catch up’.

Finally, Quinn moved and Rachel turned to watch her while still trying to keep her eyes on the ‘road’. It seemed the restlessness they were both feeling had caught up with Quinn as she started checking out the   
Bronco again.

An opening.

“It’s not much, mostly blankets and clothes,” Rachel commented lightly, wincing this time when Quinn jumped skittishly. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m just – well…” Quinn trailed off, figuring that Rachel knew full well what she was ‘just’. They all were.

“Yeah,” Rachel nodded. “Quinn, can I – may I ask about Lima?”

Quinn stiffened, eyes stinging behind the dark, polarized lenses of her Sawfly’s. “Why?”

“I’m sorry, I was just…” Rachel sighed, rolling her eyes at herself. She hadn’t been thinking before she’d opened her mouth. Her social skills may have been a tad bit rusty but generally her brain to mouth filter worked a hell of a lot better. Of course in Quinn’s presence she’d found herself tongue tied and blurted out the one thing you never asked. Not right off the bat. She might as well have asked how Quinn felt about knowing that every other person she knew was most likely dead. “I didn’t mean to upset you. You’re the only person I can – “

“Share with,” Quinn listlessly finished for her. “I get it, Rachel, but I’m not – I’m not at the point where I can talk about it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be there. I know it’s been a long time...”

“Right,” Rachel nodded again shortly, unable to keep her disappointment completely out of her tone. It wasn’t that she wanted to dredge up her own painful memories or rake Quinn over the coals of hers, but the idea of being able to talk about it with someone who knew Lima – well she’d hoped maybe there might be some peace found there. Small or not, any sort of calm to her turbulent memory-fueled nightmares would be a blessing.

But she couldn’t begrudge Quinn’s reticence to talk about it, so they settled once more into silence.

Rachel had always prided herself on her massive vocabulary, one that didn’t require her to resort to crudity to verbally lambaste someone or get her point across. However, when she saw Quinn had returned her attention back out the window and the pale hand that moved with rough quickness to swipe at a cheek, she couldn’t find a single word to better sum up her feelings.

“Shit,” she muttered, clutching tighter at the steering wheel to keep herself from smacking it.

All those years apart and Quinn Fabray could still reduce her to a stammering, stumbling, swearing idiot.

\---

They stopped as the sun started its descent. Rachel and Quinn had gone the whole day without saying much of anything to each other and by the time the Bronco had rolled to a stop Rachel was already halfway out of the car and watching Quinn walk away.

She didn’t even bother with hoping that Quinn might come back to try again; instead she threw herself back into her role as a leader, setting teams to work, preparing once more for the dangers of the night. One that would with any luck not bring a repeat of the previous evening. 

Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Quinn again, waving her arms as she animatedly “discussed” something with Luz. Jealousy surged and Rachel bit down on her lip so hard she tasted the sharp tang of blood. She had no reason to expect that she and Quinn would instantly be best buddies, but it still hurt – just as it always had – to see Quinn being friendly with everyone else. Only Rachel had ever seemed to bring out that closed off, angry, defensive part of Quinn.

No doubt sensing the eyes tracking her movements, Quinn turned and stared right back, gaze lingering and heavy even across the distance.

Shaking her head, Rachel lifted a hand in a wave and then continued on her way, headed for Kevin’s van.   
There was already a line for food and Rachel made sure to walk up from the back, checking with each and every person to see how they were holding up. They all seemed tired, but they smiled at her, a new gleam shining in their eyes – hope for a better future now that they had some sort of plan beyond “drive to the horizon and then keep going”. The children, especially, were very excited about the prospect of seeing the ocean, and they asked her all sorts of questions about sea life. Rachel did her best to answer them, having been a lover of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet; she knew enough about dolphins and sea turtles to whet their appetites. 

Finally, she made her way up to Kevin, who smiled at her in that fake way that never ceased to make Rachel’s heart drop into her stomach every time she saw it. She knew what it meant but asked anyway.  
“Kevin, how are things here?”

His smile actually tightened, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he bared his teeth at her in more of a grimace than a smile. “Same as always, boss. You know, it’s peachy.”

Rachel rubbed a hand against the back of her neck and pushed her sunglasses up her nose with the other. “Peachy” was their code word for “out of food”. Kevin had picked it, of course, and he found it ironic while   
Rachel found it depressing. “I’ll talk to Ethan and see if we can’t get a little more variety,” she told him, grinning down at the little dirt smeared boy who was reaching up for his dinner. “Hey, Skyler, are you going to help me learn how to fish when we get to the coast?”

Skyler blushed, hands wrapped around his can of mystery food, and nodded shyly. Rachel held her hand out to him for a high five which he quickly delivered before racing off to join the other children gathering around Ollie for a campfire tale or two.

“Rachel,” Kevin said, dragging Rachel’s eyes away from the small group of orphans surrounding Ollie. He was holding a can out towards her and she stared at it for a long while before pushing it back towards him firmly. “Rachel.”

“Not hungry. Thanks though,” Rachel told him, quickly leaving him behind before he could chase her down and force the food on her.

She found Ethan easily enough. He often teased her about having “mad stalker skills”, but the truth was she just knew him and it wasn’t hard to figure out where he’d be. They were all predictable in their own ways. He looked up from the rifle he was cleaning on the tailgate of his Suburban and smirked briefly before returning his attention to the weapon. “Decided to mingle with us commoners?”

“Don’t be like that,” Rachel scolded, carefully perching on the tailgate and picking up the scope. “We’re out of food.”

“Rachel, we’ve been out of food for five years, but I suppose what you really mean is that we’re dangerously close to the “red line”?”

Rachel curled her lip at him and pulled her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to glare at him over the top of the frames. “I’m sure I’ve earned some sarcasm, but I’m not in the mood.”

“Too bad,” Ethan grinned at her, putting the rifle down. “I think you may need to sing a little Corey Hart   
‘Sunglasses at Night’ this evening. Love the shades, babe.”

With a huff Rachel pulled her Aviators completely off and shoved them on top of her head. “Ass.”

“Yes Ma’am,” he nodded and reached deeper into the back of the car, prying free a tattered map from one of the various cubby holes. He spread it out carefully for both of them to look at under the dim light from the car. “God, I miss the days of Google Maps.”

“It would certainly help with the whole global positioning nightmare,” Rachel groused, leaning over his burly shoulder to squint down at the map. “When you find a good spot for us to try for gas and canned goods let me know. We’ll hammer out a plan later.”

“Are you going to consult the cool kids?” he asked, his large hands splayed out along the map, dark eyes not even bother with a glance her way.

“I’m going to talk to them, yes,” Rachel sighed again and leaned her forehead down on his arm. “Try not to be so sensitive; you know you’re the favorite.”

“Hmph. Well, see if they have a better idea of where we are and maybe get some more details other than ‘drive West’ from them.”

“You can ask yourself since they’ll be joining us for our planning,” Rachel said, holding up her hand to stop him from objecting. “Nope, it’s happening. I’m not saying you have to be nice, but I’m telling you that it’s happening so you can go ahead and prepare your scathing marks ahead of time.”

“How kind of you,” Ethan grumbled. “Fine. You’re the boss, boss. Best go get your transmission done while I figure this out.”

Grinning to hide her apprehension of another face off between her people and Quinn’s, Rachel leaned in and kissed his rough cheek. “You’re a saint, and never let anyone tell you different.”

“Blah, blah, don’t try to sweet talk me now,” he said, shoving her away lightly. “Go on now, get.”

As soon as her back was turned to him the smile slipped off her face. Rachel looked up at the darkening sky and pleaded silently with whoever was watching that things would work out. Just this once.

After sending out the transmission (with a heartfelt rendition of Michael Buble’s “Home”) Rachel needed some space before trying to navigate her way through what would surely be a tense meeting around the back of the Bronco. The hostility between Quinn’s group and her own had diminished slightly, but there was still an obvious separation between parties. Quinn had stayed away from her after their lovely car ride, and she’d caught a couple of glimpses of her people giving the newcomers a wide berth. She could only hope that by the time they reached the coast the two groups would be able to come together, otherwise it was going to be a longer trip than anyone had anticipated. Especially if they succeeded and ended up stuck on a ship together for God knew how long until they found a suitable place to relocate. 

“Busy?”

Rachel hadn’t heard the approach, too lost off in her own thoughts to be paying attention. A dangerous pastime she really couldn’t afford. It was careless to get so comfortable. Her body jumped, muscles coiling, knife halfway from its sheath as her head snapped up so fast it burned her neck. The figure looming behind her was like the angel of death, finally coming to claim her. You could only be lucky for so long. She relaxed almost as quickly as she’d tensed when she made out who it was that had gotten the drop on her: Quinn. Of course it was Quinn, staring down at her and stepping the rest of the way out of the shadows, a curious expression just visible.

Quinn took the single shoulder shrug that Rachel offered as an invitation to drop down into the sand beside her old schoolmate. But neither said a word, both staring into the fire, contemplating their presence in each other’s lives but unable to come up with anything to say. 

“I saw your movie, um, the last one. The...” Rachel said, breaking the stalemate. She hesitated, seeing Quinn’s eyebrow lift. The word was there, right on the tip of her tongue. She hated that word, felt that it diminished the very real horror they were all caught up in. Zombie. “The apocalypse one.”

Amused at Rachel’s dodging of the ‘z’ word, Quinn snorted. It was so very Rachel, charming and ridiculous. “Funny, isn’t it?” She jabbed the stick she’d been fiddling with into the fire, hazel eyes flashing in the shower of embers that drifted up at the harsh poke.

“Not really,” Rachel said softly - carefully - mesmerized with watching those eyes burn in the reflection. 

The air between them seemed to crackle with hushed energy as they fell back to silence, Quinn seemingly content to continue to prod at the fire while Rachel stared at her struggling to find the words she needed.

“I wish… I wish that I’d gotten there sooner.”

It could barely be called speaking, Quinn’s voice was so soft, but Rachel heard it and picked up on the guilt that laced Quinn’s raspy voice. Something inside her cracked at the familiar vulnerability and her mind raced back to a similar side by side conversation in a school hallway.

“Quinn,” she started, faltering as the name crossed her lips. She was unsure of what she could say – these types of conversations didn’t happen often, or at all, anymore. Quinn didn’t need to give further details, Rachel knew what she meant, what she was referring to, but as for responding… Quinn was broken, more so than anyone else Rachel had encountered, more than Before even. Quinn always had been just a little broken. Without pausing to think it over first Rachel reached out because her words had failed her, laying her fingers on Quinn’s knee.

Quinn twitched away, recoiling and almost cowering.

Rachel drew her hand back, unsure of what Quinn was seeing in her face but she hoped it was her unspoken apology. When Quinn looked over at her, though, tears shimmering in her eyes and a small, sad, little smile on her lips reminiscent of the one she’d given Rachel after their first and only duet – the nostalgia threatened to knock the breath out of her. 

She’d been unable to find anything to say to Quinn, all those years ago. Now seeing that same expression again Rachel wondered what it meant. Quinn had always been a master of secrets, but now Rachel wondered if maybe - given enough time - she might learn what it was Quinn was saying to her without a single word. 

\---

TBC...


	4. Chapter Three

So many things - too many things - had gone wrong in the past five years, and not just the end of the world. Rachel had made mistakes, had lived through others’ mistakes, and had learned from them. Mostly. She’d certainly learned enough to know that she didn’t ever want to repeat any of them again if she could avoid it. 

She’d learned that mistakes almost always lead to someone’s death, and that even almost is far too high a price to pay for the experience garnered. 

She used her pricey experience when she planned things, tried to adapt those lessons to refine things, but no matter how hard she tried or how tirelessly she strived for perfection she always ended up wrong. It wasn’t a game, and yet she was still losing it. 

Which was why she was sitting in her Bronco with the door wide open trying her best to rein back her scampering thoughts, to hold the leash a little tighter. She had to get in the right mind, had to get to that place where she was no longer scared, sick-to-her-stomach Rachel but the new Rachel who didn’t laugh in the face of fear. The one who charged into it anyway, despite the fear.

Outside the temperature was starting to drop as night approached, offering them cover but also adding a new layer of risk to their venture. Rachel shivered from more than just the chill, watching Ethan, Ollie, Kevin... Quinn - her friends - still gathered around the back of Ethan’s Suburban pointing at the map and making sweeping gestures at the horizon. They’d laid their plan out hours ago but the others were still scheming, trying to make it perfect. That would have been amusing if it wasn’t also so telling. The Dead sought the living, and like sharks chasing the barest hint of blood they sensed them and would be drawn in. Always moving, searching, hungering, circling in closer and closer. No matter how much they planned, no matter how hard they tried, there was no avoiding the facts.

Perfection had never existed, and certainly the “perfect” plan had never been hatched in the new world.

Drawing in a shuddering breath that did little to calm her pre-”mission” jitters, Rachel bounced her head back against the headrest and then reached up on impulse, pulling down the sun visor to remove the picture trapped behind it.

It was faded and worn, the sun and time having done its best to erode the image, but Rachel’s memory helped keep it sharp. She ran her thumb along the dog-eared edge and bit her lip as she looked at the old photo, her dads sitting on either side of a seventeen year-old Rachel on her birthday. All three of them were smiling at the camera with their arms around each other, happy. Rachel’s heart thudded loudly in her ears as she continued to stare at the picture, even as it started to blur with the sting of tears. 

She’d gone home. As soon as she realized what was going on, that it wasn’t some sick joke that people were eating other people in the streets of New York, she went back to Lima thinking she could find safety in her childhood home with her fathers. Surely nothing that awful could exist within those walls. Lima, Ohio was boring and the very idea that something like zombies could be there smacked against all reason. 

How wrong she’d been. How fast time moved when she didn’t want it to. Her home had looked the same, the driveway still had that crack in it that drove her Daddy nuts, and the front door still had that stupid, wonderful bedazzled sign she’d made proclaiming “The Berrys!” on it. But inside it was wrong, all so wrong. The air was stale and without the lingering scent of those cinnamon candles her Dad liked, and there were no sounds of her parents in the house. She could taste the dust in the air and something else, something dank and sharp and sinister like a ghost waiting in the wings preparing to strike. The fine hairs at the nape of Rachel’s neck and along her arms had stood on end, warning her further and she knew without seeing any evidence that she would not like what she was about to find. Dread settled over her in an unwelcome embrace, making her lips tremble as she looked up at the ceiling, too scared to move for the stairs just yet. She couldn’t even make herself call out for them, their names stuck in her throat.

She found them upstairs, or at least she had found parts of one of them. It was forever etched in her mind - the overwhelming smell of dried blood, of things that she’d never imagined she would see in her life. The glint of a wedding band had caught her eye and she’d lost it, crumpling onto the floor, making sounds that she didn’t even know she could make, and then she’d screamed until her voice went hoarse. She couldn’t remember leaving the house, but the next thing she knew she was out of Lima on the road to anywhere, so long as it was away from everything. There was nothing left…

“Hey, Rachel?”

She moved quickly, slipping the picture back into place and using the movement to wipe her eyes on her arm. “Ye-ah?”

If Quinn noticed the crack in her voice she didn’t say anything about it, though her approach slowed. Still she kept coming until she was hovering right outside the open door. “We’re just about ready.”

Rachel hummed, thinking to herself that none of them were ever really ready. “Okay. Guess we better load up then.”

Quinn smiled and Rachel tried to return it, but she became distracted by the changes Quinn had made to her attire since the last time she’d seen her. “What are you... Desert Combat Barbie?”

“In this outfit? Please. More like Z-Day Survival Barbie,” Quinn joked back, ducking her head sheepishly. “I call it Apocalypse Chic.” 

She really hadn’t changed much, Rachel noted, just thrown on a drab green military style jacket over her frayed t-shirt and braided her hair, but still. With a snort, Rachel shook her head and turned to hop out of her truck. “Nice.”

Quinn stepped back, giving Rachel more space than necessary as Rachel pretended she didn’t notice and calmly reached back for her flannel shirt. It was her Daddy’s - Leroy’s - and it swamped her but she didn’t really care about extra fabric. The smell of his cologne may have faded long ago, but it allowed her to feel close to him. She’d stolen a few of his shirts and a couple of her Dad’s things as well, just enough for her to carry in a duffle bag, unable to stand the thought of completely leaving them behind.

The shirt didn’t do much to keep the chill from biting at her but it would be more than enough when the adrenaline hit. Sneaking around in a dark and more than likely undead infested city would be more than enough to get her body wound up. A heavier coat would just make her sweat more and she had no desire to attract any more creatures than she could avoid. 

Quinn left ahead of her, wandering back towards the Suburban, that familiar strut creating a pang of longing within Rachel. If only she could go back now, back to high school where the scariest thing in her world was seeing that strut paired with a cheerleading uniform. Go back to Before when her troubles came down to Glee, Mr. Schuester’s attempts at ruining her life, and Finn. Always Finn.

Rachel watched them all for a moment longer, wondering what life would have been like had she married Finn. Would she have been in New York when the world ended? Would Finn have survived if he’d been with her? Somehow she doubted it, and it made her feel awful, but it was also too true for her to ignore. Finn was lost in the world before it had turned; he never would have been able to handle the new reality.

Rachel didn’t think she’d have been able to keep him safe. 

She couldn’t keep anyone safe.

Shaking her head again for the millionth time, she set out to follow Quinn’s path, watching her feet sink into the soft dirt of the desert. Quinn coming back had amped up her memory, it seemed, and she was finding herself lost in the past more often than ever before - whether it was a good thing or not.

“We’ll need a - a distraction,” Ethan was saying as she closed the gap between the group and herself. 

A distraction. Her heart plummeted back into her stomach as she swallowed. A distraction meant bait and bait almost certainly meant a suicide mission. Nobody spoke for a long time, not even to greet her as she finally pushed herself into the circle. They wouldn’t even make eye contact with one another.

“I’ll do it,” Quinn said, a tight smile gracing her features as several heads snapped up to stare at her. 

Rachel bit into her bottom lip until she tasted blood, desperate to keep from shouting her objection to the heavens. She had to keep her cool; no one would believe her as the voice of reason if she couldn’t keep a lid on her more volatile emotions.

“Quinn,” Alex spoke up softly, and Rachel felt the first touch of guilt ridden relief. Surely Alex could be the voice of reason here and keep Quinn from doing something stupid. They’d find another way around without offering someone up to the devil.

“She could take the dirt bike,” Chevy interrupted, jerking his thumb back towards their truck. “That should be enough of an edge to keep her out of their hands.”

No, no, no, Rachel thought desperately, looking at Quinn and trying her hardest to project that thought. 

Ethan, always so perceptive, took one look at Rachel’s panic stricken face and put in his own opinion. “That doesn’t seem like - there’s another way, right? We could set something else up. Maybe park a car and blast the radio?”

“Look,” Quinn sighed, tugging at the end of her braid. “I’m not.. guys, I’m just an actress, okay? Not a soldier, nobody’s leader - an actress. One who happened to have ironically starred in a few films about zombies. I’m the obvious choice here. I did my own stunts and this isn’t really any different. I’m good on the dirt bike, I’m lighter than the guys, and I can be useful doing this. So I’m going.”

One glance at the steel behind Quinn’s eyes and Rachel’s protests died on her tongue. She couldn’t argue, no matter how badly she might want to. Quinn was the perfect candidate, but she was wrong, too, because she was more than an actress. Maybe she wasn’t a soldier, or a leader, but she was important to Rachel and the idea of her out there on her own made Rachel want to throw up. 

There was nothing she could do. Quinn had always been so stubborn, and if her mind was made up then that was that. 

“I’ll get the bike down,” Alex offered, dragging Luz and Chevy with him.

“We’ll go get the bags ready and put fresh ammo in the guns,” Ollie added, nodding to Kevin and Ethan who immediately acknowledged the silent out.

That left Quinn and Rachel to finish their stare down in relative privacy.

Rachel licked her lips and looked away first, unable to stand those nameless emotions being directed at her so intently. “Quinn...”

“Rachel, it’s not my first rodeo, and it’s my choice. I’m no Milla Jovovich but I think I’ll be fine.”

Banishing the threatening tears and swallowing back a lump of something stuck in her throat, Rachel nodded shortly with the barest bob of her head. She still couldn’t face Quinn - it felt too much like saying goodbye and she’d promised herself that that wouldn’t happen. “Please - Please be careful.”

Quinn’s fingers were cold when they tentatively wrapped around Rachel’s wrist, forcing her to make eye contact again. She gasped softly when she was caught once more in swirling hazel eyes. “I will be, but if it would make you feel better...” she reached down to her hip with her free hand and unclipped the walkie-talkie on her belt. “Here. Now you can keep track of me and boss me around to your heart’s content. It’ll be like old times.”

Rachel grasped the walkie-talkie more eagerly than she would have liked, but it was like a lifeline being offered to a drowning victim. “Keep your word, Quinn,” she warned when she found her ability to speak again. “I don’t think I can handle anymore ghosts following me around.”

“I’ll be okay, really,” Quinn said and released Rachel’s wrist as though she’d just realized she still had hold of it. She clasped both hands in front of her and Rachel would have laughed at such a display of shyness if it weren’t for Alex and Chevy walking back up, rolling the dirt bike between them. 

“She’s got a full tank of gas, so you should be good for awhile,” Chevy informed Quinn, holding out the key for her. “Don’t go trying any Evel Knievel stunts though.”

“Wouldn’t want to steal your thunder,” Quinn teased, casting one last lopsided smile at Rachel before straddling the old bike. “So I’ll just go on ahead and lead as many of them away from the areas you guys will be in. Meet back up at the hospital, right?”

Alex nodded, worry coming off of him in obvious waves. “If you get into trouble...”

“I know,” Quinn promised and turned the key in the ignition.

\---

They didn’t wait long after Quinn had taken off towards the city, whooping and hollering and being as noisy as possible. Rachel was fairly certain that taunting the undead, calling them “fuckers” and belittling their existence, wouldn’t actually do any more than the yelling, but it made the others smile.

Rachel wasn’t smiling though, as she, Ethan, and Alex crept through the remains of the town toward the hospital. They couldn’t take vehicles because it would attract the attention Quinn was risking her life to get, which left them on foot, jumping at shadows and clutching weapons that much closer. 

There were three “types” of undead to look out for. The first two, the “crawlers” and the “walkers” weren’t that concerning as they were easily outmaneuvered most of the time. The ones to be leery of, the ones that posed the biggest threat, were the “runners” - undead who somehow retained their ability to move like the living. They were deceptive as well, often times shambling towards their targets like any other walker, right up until they broke into a sprint. If you weren’t careful, if you weren’t fast enough, they would easily catch you and then it was all over.

Fortunately they didn’t encounter any undead as they crept up on the hospital, but Rachel couldn’t bring herself to be glad of their fortune, too busy wondering what it meant for Quinn and also wondering when that luck would run out. 

Because it always ran out.

The automatic doors at the hospital were broken, some shards of glass still clinging to the bent frames while the rest crunched under their boots as they slowly moved into the desolate place. There were no lights, of course, and their flashlights only seemed to add to the creepy atmosphere.

Rachel had always hated hospitals - they smelled too much of chemicals used to try and mask the scent of death. She found the whole place to be fake and awful. While, yes, lives were saved or even born in hospitals, but they were also the place where so many people went to die. Now sneaking into one in the night with only the thin beam of her worn flashlight to illuminate her way, Rachel couldn’t help but think that she’d been right.

Hospitals were death masquerading as a place for the living.

She shivered, half hidden behind Ethan’s bulk as they slipped down a long corridor, peering into empty rooms. There were smears of blood along walls and skeletons gathering dust scattered around like litter. 

“This place needs an exorcism,” Ethan grumbled down to her, his voice barely audible. 

Alex snorted behind Rachel, his pistol trained back the way they’d come just in case an ambitious creature decided to try and sneak up on them. 

Rachel wondered again where Quinn was. She hoped she was alright. The walkie hanging from her hip was a reminder that someone was missing. It had been so long since Rachel had missed a living being that her anxiety was driving her to distraction.

“We should split up, cover more ground,” Alex suggested.

“Considering that we’re living in a horror movie, you really think that’s a good idea?” Ethan huffed, but he stopped moving forward and dropped to a knee, twisting to shoot an incredulous look back at Alex. “And I count three minorities amongst this little party. Want to take bets on who dies first? The black guy, the Jew, or the Asian?”

“Well I can’t die,” Rachel said, arching an eyebrow as she peered past Ethan down the hallway. “I’m the hero.”

“How do you know that you’re the hero?” Ethan asked, his fake annoyance at her assumption stealing a smile from her. “Maybe I’m the hero.”

“You’re a man; it’s not possible.” Rachel shook her head and patted his bicep. “I think Alex is right though, we have a lot of ground to cover in here. Just keep your eyes open for monsters or some asshole with a bad attitude and a power tool of some sort.”

“Lovely,” Ethan sighed.

“Hey, but Rachel isn’t half naked so we should be okay,” Alex commented helpfully, already starting to head down the hall that branched away from them. 

“Right. As long as I keep my shirt on we’re safe, or I’m safe,” Rachel agreed, flashing a grin at Ethan. “But that still means you have to be extra careful big guy, since the rules don’t apply to men.”

“Stupid gender rules,” Ethan sighed. 

“It’s probably bad luck to joke about death in hospitals,” Rachel said, lightly shoving Ethan away from her so she could take point. “I’m going this way. Yell loudly if you run into Jason.”

“Be careful, babe,” Ethan warned her. “I’m going to see if I can find the locker rooms.”

“I hate to tell you but I don’t think there will be any hot nurses taking a shower down there,” Rachel teased. It did little to quell the terror rising in her chest, but it made Ethan smile.

“A man can dream.”

They separated without another word between them. No need to say goodbyes, not for them. Rachel took a deep breath and held it until her chest ached, exhaling through her teeth and counting slowly to ten, then set her shoulders back and continued on her own down the now lonely hallway. She walked as stealthily as she could, rolling her feet from heel to toe to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible on the dirty linoleum floor. The further she got down the hall the louder her heart seemed to be pounding in her ears, and the louder her thoughts seemed to be as every sense she had strained for any clues about her surroundings and what might be lurking around the corner.

The walkie on her hip added a new weight to her pants, dragging them down - dragging her down - until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She tugged the thing off her belt and glared at it until the urge she’d been steadfastly ignoring reared its head again and demanded her immediate attention.

Chewing on her lip, Rachel found the nearest empty room and backed herself into a corner, back hitting the wall with a solid thump. She slid down until she was squatting uncomfortably, back to the wall and most of her weight resting on her heels. “Quinn?” she whispered into the walkie, closing her eyes as she released the talk button. It was stupid and it was dangerous, but she wasn’t going to be able to continue, not on her own, without knowing.

“Hey, Broadway, can’t talk. Be safe,” the walkie crackled back. Quinn was panting and half-shouting over the whine of the dirt bike and Rachel felt idiotic for risking so much for something so small. The relief was tainted with guilt, but it was still there, helping to ease the pinch in her chest. She should know better than to encourage Quinn Fabray to use any sort of electronic device while operating a moving vehicle, especially a dirtbike. Images flickered quickly: a ruined wedding, a totaled red Volkswagen, wheelchairs. Prom. Quinn’s strength, the look on her face, and the determination mixing with pain as she forced herself to stand.

“Broadway,” Rachel said aloud, snapping herself back into the present. Quinn had given her many nicknames, but she actually liked the sound of that one. It fit, somehow. “Hollywood and Broadway. Jesus, we could be a sitcom.”

Something metal clanged to the floor, clattering and echoing loudly throughout the hospital. Rachel spooked hard and smacked her head back into the wall. Mick was back in her hand instantly, and she once again cursed herself for being so careless. Clipping the walkie safely back to her side she unfolded herself and gingerly stood back up, ignoring the tingling in her thighs as she stalked back out of the room.

“I’m going to need a bigger boat.” Rachel barely breathed as she stepped into the hall and followed her gut down to the next room. Flashlight in one hand, Mick balanced on that wrist, she kicked open the door, all the fine hairs on the back of her neck and along her arms standing at full attention as she took in the room. A metal tray lay abandoned on the ground, and she just knew that was what had fallen.

“Is there anyone in here... alive?” she asked quietly, alarm bells ringing in the back of her head. She didn’t feel... afraid. There was something there but whatever it was, she wasn’t frightened of it.

“Please,” a voice begged, the thick accent throwing Rachel for a loop just as much as the dark head of hair that appeared over the other side of the hospital bed. “Don’t shoot.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Rachel asked bluntly, too shocked to be anything else in the moment. Stranger things had happened, certainly, but she was baffled at this turn of events. They hadn’t expected to find anyone living.

“I’m a doctor,” the woman said, slowly rising fully from behind the poor shelter of the capsized bed. “CJ.”

“You’re British,” Rachel stated, blinking stupidly at the stranger. At CJ. 

“And you’re observant,” CJ commented stiffly, hands still held up in the air like a hostage. “Please, I don’t have anything of value to you.”

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Rachel said, offended at the idea. “Lady, this is your lucky day. Consider this to be your rescue.”

“Rescue?” CJ’s nose wrinkled and her hands wavered a moment before she dropped them limply to her sides. 

“Ladies, perhaps we could save conversation for a later time,” Alex chimed in, nearly earning himself a pistol whip to the head as he appeared behind Rachel.

“Fuck! Alex, warn me,” Rachel hissed.

“Sorry, but I heard voices. You should be more careful, I could’ve been... something else.”

Rachel bristled at the scolding, even if she deserved it, and opened her mouth to return a barb of her own when it occurred to her. “Where’s Ethan?”

“Probably still looking for supplies,” Alex said easily, so obviously unworried that it only made Rachel more so. Why had she agreed to splitting up? “Why don’t I take the good doctor here to help me find things that we might actually find useful, and you can go find him?”

CJ’s pretty brown eyes went a little wider in her face, but Alex was already gesturing for her to hurry up and there really wasn’t much else she could do. Ask to stay behind? No, really, thanks for the offer but I’m happy here in zombie General Hospital? She brushed past Rachel with a confused expression, but Rachel couldn’t find the will to try and comfort her, too busy gnawing on her abused lip thinking about where Ethan could be.

If Alex had heard them and come running, why hadn’t Ethan?

Rachel didn’t even know where to begin her search; she felt even more lost as she re-entered the hallway and saw Alex and CJ sneaking away from her in the opposite direction. She couldn’t just walk down the halls calling his name, either. If CJ was still in there and they hadn’t noticed her there was a good chance there were other things waiting to pounce. Things that could have already ripped Ethan to shreds before he’d had the chance to call out for help.

And she’d been checking on Quinn.

“Ethan,” she stage-whispered urgently, Mick shaking in her grasp as she moved as quickly as she could without full on running through the horrid hospital rat maze. Where was that damn cheese, anyway?

She stopped at the ‘T’ intersection and looked left, right, then left again, pulse hammering away again, this time right behind her eyes. 

“Please, God,” she started down to the right, trying to see and hear everything at once. “Ethan?”

God answered her plea in the worst way possible, showing his sense of humor when the glass further down the hallway exploded as Ethan came through it entangled with what had once been a staff member, judging from his soiled scrubs. 

“Ethan!” Rachel cried, trembling hands finding calm as she slowly tightened her grip around the trigger. Squeeze, don’t pull, squeeze... Mick bucked in her hands once and then again, the first shot burying a bullet in the shoulder of the creature, the second finding it’s target in the back of its head, blowing chunks of skull and brain matter down the hall. 

Ethan shoved the re-dead zombie off of himself and hastily got to his feet tugging at his clothes and swiping blood and gore off himself. Chest heaving and eyes huge in his face he turned to Rachel and offered a sheepish thumbs up, signalling that he was alright.

“Moves like Jagger,” Rachel squeaked, lowering Mick back down as Ethan stumbled towards her.

“I know I only say it after you’ve saved my life, and you deserve to hear it more often, but I love you Rachel Berry,” Ethan said, pulling Rachel into a tight embrace. “You are definitely the hero.”

Adrenaline forcing her body into a strange hyper state Rachel nodded vigorously and returned Ethan’s embrace, stretching on her tiptoes to try and hold him as close as possible. “Don’t scare me like that ever again. You’re supposed to be invincible.”

“Sorry, babe,” he muttered, sighing heavily against the side of her neck. “I’ll try harder to be your Superman.”

“As long as you try,” Rachel told him, voice thick despite her attempt to sound playful. “Come on, I found a survivor and I think it’s time to regroup in a waiting room. No more hallway wandering.”

“You go on ahead, I’m going to go back and get my bag, I found some scrubs and other stuff,” Ethan said, smiling to reassure her. “Promise, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll wait here,” Rachel said firmly, offering no chance for argument. 

As soon as his back was to her he surreptitiously pulled down the neck of his baggy shirt, grimacing at a torn bite mark hidden just below his collarbone. Closing his eyes tightly he tried to find his courage and opened his mouth to tell Rachel, but when he looked back at her she smiled and waved her pistol towards the room he’d been shoved out of and he couldn’t do it.

There was some gauze and tape in his duffle bag, and he applied it over the seeping wound and then pressed his hand over it, the burn making his eyes sting.

He wouldn’t have long.

\---

TBC...


	5. Chapter Four

Quinn didn’t know what she’d been expecting when she stumbled her way into the hospital, trying to hide her limp behind some forced bravado and a smug grin that felt like it had been pasted on her face, but whatever it had been it definitely wasn’t Rachel lurching forward to swallow her in a hug.

She fumbled, trying not to fall backwards as she stiffened, hands reaching up to push Rachel away or maybe pull her closer. “Rachel?” she asked lightly, breath still coming in short pants. Looking around the room she counted in her head and saw that everyone was present and accounted for - they’d even added one to their party it appeared, if the bedraggled looking woman slouched in one of the surviving waiting room chairs was any indication. 

“You’re okay,” Rachel said, her grip tightening. Quinn patted her uncomfortably, every cell in her body screaming for her to get away from the embrace, feeling trapped with Rachel’s lean body pressing so close.

“I told you I would be,” Quinn replied, gently trying to ease herself out of Rachel’s arms and smiling to soften the rejection. She didn’t want to hurt Rachel’s feelings - not ever again - but she couldn’t handle being that close to anyone, and certainly not Rachel. It was still too raw. “I wouldn’t let them make a liar out of me.”

Rachel, ever the tenacious little pitbull, hugged Quinn again, head resting heavily against Quinn’s chest.

Resigned, Quinn told herself that it was okay, that just this once it would be okay; Rachel wasn’t going to die just because she’d hugged her. Relaxing as much as she could, even going so far as to loosely return the hold, she shot Chevy a curious look over the top of Rachel’s head, watching as he shrugged his shoulders and made an odd gesture that she took to mean “just go with it”. 

“Are - are you okay?” she asked, the first stab of real fear twisting her guts. Sure, she’d been pretty terrified racing through the streets on a dirtbike being chased by an antagonized mob of zombies, but if Rachel wasn’t okay she’d lose it. Just lose it. 

That thought was what broke her, and she untangled herself from Rachel and took two steps away, scanning the other woman for injuries to mask her escape. Rachel didn’t seem to notice or care, staring at Quinn like she was a ghost, just like she had when Quinn had woken up in the back of an old Bronco after saving her life. 

“You’re bleeding,” Rachel said, openly not answering Quinn’s inquiry. 

Quinn touched the scrape on her elbow and her fingers came away red. “Yeah, um, Chevy, I’m really sorry but I sort of crashed your dirt bike.”

“It’s okay.” Chevy sighed, hands resting possessively against the M4 slung across his chest. “It was a piece of shit anyway. I’m sure we’ll find a better one.”

“You’re in luck though, Hollywood,” Alex said and pointed at the new comer who was watching them all warily. “We found a doctor. She can patch up that little cut for you.”

“That’d be nice.” Quinn smiled at the doctor and lifted her elbow up so she could see the damage better. “I think it might need some stitches, if you can manage that. I’m Quinn, by the way.”

“I know who you are,” CJ said, hesitating only briefly before she got to her feet and approached Quinn like one would a feral beast. “God if this doesn’t make me feel like I’m dreaming. I’m CJ.”

Quinn nodded, completely understanding where CJ was coming from. Finding herself starring in a real version of her movies had often made her feel like she was still filming and simply dreaming that she was her character all over again. 

“What’s that short for, anyway?” Luz asked, moving over to lean against the wall closer to Quinn, arms crossed over her chest and watching CJ like a hawk as she examined Quinn’s arm. 

“It’s short for my name,” CJ replied easily - distractedly - as she probed the deep cut just above the point of Quinn’s elbow. 

Quinn arched her eyebrow a little higher and smirked at Luz’s scowl, knowing full well that CJ had just unintentionally made a friend. Luz had a strange way of accepting people: the more you were able to dish it back the better the friendship you could forge with her. She was like Santana in that way - in a lot of ways - and while it had taken Quinn awhile to get over that, to not see Santana every time she looked at Luz, she’d learned enough differences between the two to no longer see her old friend in the new one.

“This will need stitches, but perhaps it could wait until we get somewhere a bit safer?”

“Words of wisdom,” Ollie agreed, standing up and hefting his bag over his shoulder. “I don’t need a medical degree to second that motion.”

Her elbow stung quite a bit, but looking around the dank, eerie hospital and then at the faces all crowded around her, Quinn had to third, more than okay with living with the pain a little longer if it meant being somewhere not there. “I led the horde out of town but they’ll probably come ambling back this way soon.”

“There’s something we need to take care of first,” Ethan spoke up quietly, head bowed and hands clasped in front of him. Quinn side-eyed him, taking in the posture and feeling a sinking in her stomach. He looked like a repentant prisoner awaiting his sentence. She knew he wasn’t talking about her scrapes, and when he finally looked up and locked eyes with her she felt her heart leap up into her throat, threatening to choke her.

Rachel seemed to recognize the same thing; she was shaking her head at him, denying the verdict before she’d even heard it.

Ethan didn’t say another word, simply yanking down the collar of his shirt to reveal the bloody gauze taped to his chest. 

Everyone standing close to him took an immediate step back, putting distance between themselves and the walking dead man. 

“No,” Rachel said, her voice as wobbly as her legs as she stepped towards him. “No.”

“Rachel, I’m sorry... I wasn’t fast enough this time,” Ethan said so morosely that Quinn’s eyes welled up. How callous a world they lived in, that someone could so easily accept their death knowing there was no hope, no cure to fight for. That this would not go into remission but had only one way out.

“No,” Rachel repeated, striking him, slapping at his arm and chest in an agony they all knew too well. “No, no, no!”

Ethan caught her flailing hands and used them to tug her into his chest, careful to keep her face away from his wound as he held her tightly, rocking her against him as she sobbed wildly into his shirt. He didn’t try to shush her, instead stroking her hair soothingly with his shaking hands, lips pressed against the crown of her head.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, then looked up, cheek pressed to Rachel’s hair as he stared right at Quinn. “Could you...?”

“Me?” Quinn asked, blinking hard, shocked that he would ask her. 

Rachel jerked out of Ethan’s arms at the request, spinning around to latch onto the nearest surface. She screwed her eyes tightly shut as she breathed hard through her nose, shivering from head to toe.

“I can’t ask them, Rachel. I can’t ask them to do this,” Ethan explained, his pained smile touching each person in the room before landing back on Quinn. 

“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Luz demanded, shoving off the wall and putting herself between Quinn and the dying man. 

But Quinn knew. “It’s a sin,” she said plainly, ignoring the looks of surprise. She pulled her crucifix out of her shirt and held it up for Ethan to see, gesturing at his chest where she’d seen one similar to her own hanging.

“The things we hold on to sometimes seem silly,” Ethan commented, clutching the crucifix under his shirt in his palm. 

“They keep us human,” Quinn finished flatly, reaching out to touch Luz’s arm, prying her out of her protective stance. She appreciated it, but it wasn’t necessary. Ethan was already gone and she wouldn’t refuse his last request. 

“Rachel,” Ethan said, laying his hand against her heaving shoulders, trying to ignore the way she flinched under the contact. “I love you, and I need you to know that you’re going to be fine, babe. I’m going to be watching over you.”

“Don’t,” Rachel croaked, bowing her head and slumping until her forehead landed on her arms. “I love you, too.”

There was nothing any of them could do, nothing but the mercy Quinn could grant at some cost to her soul. But it wasn’t for Ethan, they both knew that as Quinn followed him into an empty room, her shotgun heavier than ever in her sweaty palms. She didn’t look at him as she stepped over to the window, she only saw Rachel who was shoving away the comfort being offered to her by her friends and falling into a chair as far away as possible, curling up and covering her ears. It wouldn’t be enough to block out the sound, Quinn knew, but she hoped that it was enough to muffle it, to soften the blow. 

She drew the blinds and when she turned back around Ethan was kneeling, hands on his thighs, palms up. 

Swallowing back her revulsion, the hatred she felt for herself at what she was about to do, Quinn spoke. “What do you want?”

“You already know what you have to do, Quinn,” he said wearily, only now crying openly, his dark eyes radiating regret as he stared at the shotgun. He reached behind his neck and fumbled for a long few seconds and then pulled his hand back, his crucifix dangling from his fingers. Quinn took the necklace from him and tried to be reverent about it when she put it into her pocket. 

“My Latin is rusty,” she admitted, wracking her brain for the right words, searching foggy memories long ago buried.

“I think He’ll understand if you mangle it,” Ethan laughed humorlessly.

Quinn ran her tongue over her teeth, jaw working as she struggled for breath. She had to keep it together, just for a little longer, he needed her to, Rachel needed her to. “R-requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine... et l-lux perp-petua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.”

She moved into position, unsteadily raising the shotgun until the barrel caressed the back of Ethan’s head. Vomit threatened at the back of her throat, the acid harsh, but she welcomed it - nobody should be comfortable in moment’s like this.

“I know that I don’t have to ask you this,” Ethan said, almost as haltingly as Quinn’s Latin recitation. “Please, please look after Rachel, she’s more fragile than she lets on.”

“I will,” Quinn promised, closing her eyes as her finger started to draw in, the trigger unyielding against her pull. 

“We’re all lost,” Ethan continued, as though he knew that Quinn wasn’t ready yet, that his sentence wouldn’t be interrupted and left forever unfinished. “Some more than others. Don’t ignore the signs because the destination scares you.”

He didn’t try to speak again and Quinn felt like she was suffocating in the silence, her eyes still closed as she pulled...

The shotgun went off in her hands and she nearly dropped it, surprised when it bucked. She hadn’t wanted to be aware, hadn’t wanted to know. Now she didn’t want to be the one holding it. Keeping her eyes closed she stumbled away from where she’d heard the thump of the body hitting the floor and ran herself right into a hospital bed. She dropped the shotgun onto it like it was burning her hands, and yanked her jacket off, turning it inside out and wiping it over her face and neck. When she was done and couldn’t feel the sticky warmth any longer she flung it away from her and finally opened her eyes, only looking at her hands, refusing to see what she’d done. 

“Father, forgive me,” she prayed - pleaded - quietly. “Please, I’m no priest or pastor, and I haven’t been the most... Please, welcome him. There are so few good men left and he is a good man. Please keep him and let him be at peace.”

She left the room as quickly as she could without being disrespectful and found the others standing where they’d been before. CJ had her hand over her mouth, fat tears streaming down her face. Luz, Alex, and Chevy looked at her, their expressions too kind for Quinn to stomach. Ollie, who she didn’t know well at all, looked angry more so than sad and she could appreciate that. She’d earned that, she felt, and wouldn’t begrudge him if he hated her from then on. 

And Rachel… Rachel unfolded herself from the chair, moving like every bone in her body was stiff with a kind of pain few would understand. She stood, tension rolling up from her toes to the top of her head, a wooden puppet whose master had gripped the strings to bring her to life. Those big brown eyes were dull, lifeless as they locked onto Quinn. She’d said she couldn’t handle any more ghosts following her around and now she’d become the apparition herself. 

Quinn wanted nothing more than to find the resolve, the strength she needed to approach Rachel, to embrace her and bring her back to life.

But Quinn was a coward. 

Rachel didn’t wipe at her face - her tears stayed where they were, drying in the lines they’d created in the dirt smeared on her features. Her jaw was hard and her voice gruff when she commanded that they “get the fuck out of this hell hole.”

Quinn trailed after the others, the last one out of the cursed hospital, Ethan’s cross a lead weight in her pocket.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, crossing the threshold back into the danger of the night to join the other monsters.

\---

No one said anything, not a single word, as they hurriedly picked their way back over the hill to where the rest of the convoy was waiting with hopeful stares. Rachel hated it, not her people nor their hope, but what she hated was how their faces fell, how their eyes gleamed in the gray dawn with unshed tears as they counted the returning party and didn’t see Ethan amongst their ranks.

She couldn’t talk to them, couldn’t bare facing them. She’d failed, again. And this time the price she’d paid had been Ethan. Checks and balances, the universe had given her Quinn and taken Ethan away.

CJ entered their camp and Ethan would never come back.

Checks and balances. Who would they lose now that they’d added one more to the ranks?

Rachel didn’t stay to introduce CJ to the rest of the group, instead making a beeline for her Bronco, each step painful, jarring the tears free from her eyes. Kevin took one look at her and swooped in, wrapping his arm around CJ’s shoulders and ushering her over to Ethan’s suburban, speaking lowly, as though if he spoke too loud Rachel might come undone. 

She hated that he was right. 

The safety of her Bronco was only a few paces away when a small form cut into her path, a mop of dark brown hair partially obscuring the young eyes that looked up at her. Skyler smiled tentatively, unperturbed by Rachel’s inability to do anything other than stand there swaying listlessly. He jumped forward, his small arms reaching around her hips and face pressed into her stomach, holding her tightly.

Skyler didn’t talk; he’d been mute since they’d found him and stayed that way despite the numerous attempts of every convoy member to get him to speak. He liked Rachel though, and Ethan had often told her it was because she talked enough for both of them.

Just as Rachel was reaching up, her hand moving so slowly to touch his hair, Skyler pulled away with a furious blush and darted off. She watched him go and felt guiltier still for feeling a bit of relief, for the smile that touched her face because Skyler was glad she was back.

She was back and Ethan wasn’t.

Another ghost to stalk her… she’d asked Quinn not to be that one that would join the ranks haunting her and Quinn was the one who’d...

Rachel felt the eyes on her, knew without looking that it was Quinn watching her, worrying over her. 

Shaking her head, Rachel yanked open the door to the Bronco and collapsed inside. Her energy left her with her breath as she landed on the bench seat, the seat belt digging into her ribs and reminding her that she was very much awake - it wasn’t a nightmare she was trapped in. She was barely able to lift herself up to pull the door closed behind her and it clicked weakly into place, not sealing completely and she didn’t care. Flopping back down she searched under the seat with a trembling hand until her fingertips hit soft fabric. Dragging the shirt out from it’s hiding place she pulled it against her face, taking in a deep breath and then releasing it with the first sob of many. She beat the seat under her, lashing out and punching the door, the glove box - whatever she could reach - until her knuckles hurt and her hand cramped.

Using her Daddy’s shirt to muffle the sounds, she let go of her tenuous control and drowned.

\---

She wasn’t surprised when Quinn showed up a few hours later, this time knocking politely, if shyly, on the passenger window.

Rachel had managed to avoid her as they readied to leave and continue their trip towards the coast. She’d done her damndest to stay away from her because it hurt to look at her. The guilt was eating away at her - and maybe it wasn’t fair to Quinn - but that’s the way it was. She knew it wasn’t Quinn’s fault but that didn’t make it any easier.

Certainly the fact that Rachel’s stomach erupted into butterflies at the sight of Quinn wasn’t her fault. It did nothing to tamp down Rachel’s disgust at herself. Disgust that she could be happy, that she could be experiencing whatever these feelings were in the wake of Ethan’s... passing.

It was her fault. It didn’t make sense but she continued to accept the blame. How could she not?

She had to distance herself; it was the only way to keep everyone else safe. Her concern for Quinn had made her reckless and because of that a man was dead.

Rachel would not lose another person because she was being selfish.

Hiding puffy eyes behind her sunglasses she stiffly waved for Quinn to go ahead and open the door. There could be no harm in allowing Quinn to ride with her; they were relatively safe inside the moving vehicle and Rachel would be watching herself carefully to make sure her judgement remained impartial. 

There would be no giving in to her emotions, not anymore.

Quinn smiled half heartedly as she pulled the door open. “Hi... turn left here?”

“Get in if you’re going to,” Rachel said gruffly, heart aching when Quinn’s smile fell, a blank mask swiftly covering her features. It was a look Rachel knew well. She wondered how it could be that seeing it again could hurt so badly, even if she’d wanted it not seconds before.

Without another word Quinn took her place, long arm propped up against the window and legs stretched out before her, the very picture of cool detachment. She glanced at Rachel only briefly and then leaned back into her seat with the softest sigh.

Rachel started the Bronco up and grabbed her walkie - not the one Quinn had given her, that she’d thrown into the back with the rest of the supplies where she intended for it to stay.

“Let me know about fuel. I’d rather not have to make another pit stop any time soon,” she ordered.

Nobody joked about Starbucks, or anything else for that matter, and their replies were right to the point. Rachel could have screamed because it was different and she didn’t want the reminder any more than she wanted them to act like nothing was. Like there wasn’t a huge hole now, one that Rachel didn’t know if she could crawl back out of or fill back up.

Everything hurt.

They traveled in silence for over an hour with Quinn pointing only to keep Rachel going the right direction. The tension between them was still there, dense and infuriating for Rachel who felt like she was swimming in it.

She was angry. Angry at Ethan, angry at Quinn, angry at the whole fucked up world, but mostly at herself. The things she was feeling weren’t welcome, and it had only showed up with Quinn and her stupid smile and plans and... Quinn-ness. Rachel would be dead if it weren’t for her and she was mad about that, too. She was supposed to be the leader, the strong one, and if she hadn’t felt worthy of the mantle before now she knew she wasn’t. Who was she to lead? She was a goddamn Broadway singer, a tiny loudmouth who had once told the boy she loved that she needed applause to live. Selfish, arrogant, and spoiled. A Diva not a leader. 

Quinn was picking at the gauze wrapping her arm when Rachel shot a glare her direction, and if she sensed the irate stare she didn’t react, continuing to pick at the strings. It probably itched like hell. Rachel hoped so. She hoped it hurt.

“It’s okay to hate me,” Quinn said abruptly in her rasp of a voice, the gravelly sound only adding fuel to Rachel’s anger.

Her nostrils flared and she would have been embarrassed by the reaction if she wasn’t so busy contemplating all the reasons she did hate Quinn and the longer list of reasons why she didn’t. Hate was easy; Quinn wasn’t ever easy. Not Before and certainly not now. She’d never been simple, Quinn Fabray the enigma, the puzzle that Rachel never could solve. 

Unbidden, a ridiculous quote surfaced amidst her muddled thoughts: 

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. 

She was afraid, so very afraid, but she didn’t need Yoda in her head to remind her of that. And damn Finn Hudson for making her watch those movies. Surely there were better things for her brain to be dredging up to make her feel like shit. 

Afraid of what though, she wondered, tightening her jaw and grinding her teeth together. That was the million dollar question and there were so many answers. There were so many things to be afraid of - how could she choose just one?

She didn’t realize she was crying again until she flinched and awareness flooded back in. 

Quinn’s hand was on the wrist that was lying limply between them on the seat. 

Quinn, who was so skittish about contact of any sort, was initiating it, her calloused hand sliding slowly down Rachel’s wrist and then wiggling it’s way under Rachel’s own hand, holding it loosely. Rachel could feel how hard it was for Quinn to do that, to be holding her hand, and she wanted to hate her for that, too. For offering comfort when it was so obviously hard for her to do so.

Instead she carefully opened her hand, fingers uncurling against that rough palm to twine her fingers with Quinn’s, leaving them there for as long as Quinn would let her.

Both of them were quietly surprised later when they moved to exit the vehicle and suddenly remembered that they were connected.

Neither said anything about it as they untangled their fingers and went in opposite directions. The physical tether between them had broken, but the invisible one that neither could explain held strong. 

Rachel refused to hope.

\---

TBC...


	6. Chapter Five

Quinn was a coward.

She knew that about herself. Loathed it and tried to change it, but when it came down to it she’d always been a coward.

Too afraid of losing her reputation to let go of Finn.

Too afraid of being alone to admit the true paternity of her baby.

Afraid, afraid, afraid. Almost every action she’d taken had been borne out of fear. 

Then the world had changed and she’d lost everything. It was the one thing that she’d been most afraid of her entire life, and unlike all the times in the past when she’d been her own downfall, there was nothing she could have done differently.

She’d lost her baby for good. After spending so much time and effort to get her back, to be in her life, Beth had been torn away from her and she was powerless to change it. Her only recourse was to bury the pain as deep down as she could and never touch it again, never think on it, never even dare to breathe her baby’s name lest that be taken away from her somehow, too.

There were new things to be afraid of now, but strangely it wasn’t death that Quinn feared the most. She wasn’t afraid of being ripped apart and eaten alive - that wasn’t the thing that kept her awake at night.

It was the idea of being close to someone again, of letting someone get in and then watching them leave her, that’s what she couldn’t bear thinking about. 

She was afraid of life. Terrified of it.

The best way she could see to avoid that was to play tough. She faked the funk to the best of her abilities and she was brilliant at it. She’d always been a pretty good actress, after all. Hiding her cowardice came as naturally as breathing; it was even easier than before because everyone was afraid of dying, and Quinn wasn’t. They all thought she was fearless.

It was almost funny in the worst kind of way.

Then Rachel-freaking-Berry arrived, or maybe Quinn had arrived in the nick of time. Quinn wasn’t quite sure how to think about the whole thing. Everything about Rachel had always done something to Quinn, messing her up inside. When she was younger she reacted to that by shoving Rachel as far away as possible in any way possible. The girl fucked with her head, clouded everything, and it appeared that that was still the same, no matter what else had changed.

She made Quinn more afraid than anything else in the world, but she also made her feel truly brave. Made her want to actually, really be brave and not just fake it any longer. 

And that was scary, too.

Part of Quinn wanted to stay away from Rachel at all costs, but that part was at war with the other side, which begged her to be as close as Rachel would let her, to allow her the access that Quinn kept from everyone else. 

It all gave Quinn a monstrous headache.

There was a new wrinkle now: Quinn had mercy killed Rachel’s friend, her protector, her... Ethan. And she could see how badly it had messed Rachel up. Couldn’t blame her for it, either. Nor could she be upset with Rachel if she decided to hate her for it. 

Trouble was, seeing Rachel like that... it had always done more damage to Quinn than she let on, even Before. All she wanted was to take it away, to undo what she’d done and try to be brave. She wanted to be allowed to want things, even if she didn’t understand the reasons for it.

She’d surprised herself earlier, in the Bronco, by reaching for Rachel’s hand. It had been an impulse, because seeing the tears trek down Rachel’s face wrecked her enough for a crack to appear in her cowardly armor. So she’d done it: gone against herself and taken Rachel’s hand, anticipating righteous anger and to have the gesture tossed back in her face.

But Rachel had never done what Quinn expected and that hadn’t changed either. Rachel had accepted the comfort, and though Quinn had trembled some time after, she’d also relished the contact. Rachel’s fingers between hers had felt so right. Dangerously so.

When they’d stopped for the day Rachel had fled the Bronco as if it were on fire, but Quinn didn’t feel the hurt she’d expected. She did hurt - she ached for Rachel - but her feelings weren’t bruised in the slightest. As she left the Bronco and shuffled back towards Chevy and Luz and Alex, she’d felt... hopeful. 

Like maybe she could overcome her obstacles.

Maybe.

Night fell quickly like a thick blanket of stars unfurling across the sky, and Quinn wondered if wishing on stars was too childish a thing to do anymore.

She did it anyway.

Across the “camp” she saw the red-headed guy... Kevin? She saw Kevin chasing Rachel all the way back to her Bronco, holding a can out to her like a desperate boyfriend trying to make reparations with a bouquet. 

Rachel whirled around so quickly that Kevin nearly fell backwards. Quinn couldn’t hear what was said but she guessed it was not what Kevin wanted to hear, assuming she was reading his body language correctly. He scampered away from Rachel with his tail between his legs and Quinn tried not to smile.

Fierce little Rachel.

In her own hands, Quinn held a similar can of something or other, the label long ago peeled off leaving her with a mystery supper.

Chevy plopped himself down next to her, nudging her over so he could share the tire for a backrest and tapped at the can. “Want to trade?” he asked, eyeing his unopened dinner like it was the Can of Worms.

“Not even a little,” she replied distractedly, watching Rachel scale the side of her Bronco, more than slightly impressed that the tiny woman could manage such a feat. 

Deciding to try and be brave again, Quinn used Chevy’s body to help her pull herself back to her feet, and she ignored his grunt of protest, heading towards Rachel’s Bronco. The can of food was warm in her palm and she hoped it wasn’t something that would turn out to taste even worse warm.

When she reached her destination she paused, staring up the side of the truck. There would be no sneaking up on Rachel; the second she started to climb her presence would be announced. If she was going to back out now would be the time.

Throwing caution to the wind Quinn grabbed for a handhold on the slick, dirt-washed side of the Bronco and began to climb. Sure enough, the entire frame was jostled by her efforts, and when she popped her head over the roof Rachel was already waiting, glaring over at the intruder. 

Quinn didn’t bother with saying anything. She already knew Rachel wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries. Simply inviting herself up onto the roof she made herself right at home, sitting a good foot away from Rachel with her legs resting down the slope of the windshield. 

They sat in silence once again, and Quinn tried not to be offended at the way Rachel was leaning slightly away from her. If anyone could appreciate a need for distance it was Quinn. Instead of forcing the issue Quinn stayed very still, the only movement coming from her hands as she lazily rolled the can between her palms. Waiting patiently, she continued to glance at Rachel out of the corner of her eye, knowing it was only a matter of time.

Finally Rachel looked at the can, at Quinn’s hands, and then looked up, brown eyes shimmering in the distant light of the fires.

“I thought maybe we could share,” Quinn offered, stopping the can and holding it out. She smiled timidly, reminded of Lucy and her attempts to make friends by sharing the treats in her lunch pail. Lucy would have been rejected; Quinn never shared out of fear of that same rejection. Now she was a combination of the two, lips trembling against her fear all the while hoping that her gift might be accepted. 

Rachel hesitated, hand starting to lift from her lap only to drop back and then rise again, and she gently took the can from Quinn’s grasp as Quinn beamed through watery eyes.

“I saw you chase off Kevin,” Quinn commented, keeping her tone light and gentle, not wanting to break the unstable truce. “Was the lunch lady - er, man - not offering vegan options again?”

“You really need to stop living in the past... the only vegan friendly food out here is sand,” Rachel said. Her voice was so hoarse that Quinn felt a sympathetic burn in her own throat. 

As if she needed more evidence of Rachel’s crying. 

Quinn ducked her head and pushed some strands of hair that had come loose from her braid back behind her ear. “Well it’s not sand but I suspect it will be equally as enjoyable.”

Rachel opened the can with a soft grunt and Quinn leaned over as close as she could dare to see what awaited her skeptical taste buds. It was so dark that she couldn’t see much; really it all kind of looked like cat food to her anyway.

Because that would make swallowing the mushy substance better.

“I think it’s soup,” Rachel said, squinting at the contents and shaking the can. She held it out towards Quinn’s face, her expectation clear. Quinn wrinkled her nose, cautiously sniffing the air above the ‘food’.

“Cream of chicken?” she guessed, pushing it away and gesturing for Rachel to take the first mouthful. 

“Probably best not to think about it,” Rachel sighed tilting the can against her mouth and choking slightly, shaking her head as a glob fell onto her tongue. “It’s delicious.”

“You’re a horrible liar,” Quinn told her and took her turn with their dinner. “The worst part is, I know it’s foul and yet my stomach is so glad for anything that it sort of overrules the taste.”

“It could use some salt.”

Quinn chuckled, thinking that it could use a whole lot more than a sprinkle of salt. They continued to pass the meal back and forth until the can was empty and their stomachs elatively full. Rachel spoke a few words here and there, but the ease that they’d communicated with before was gone and Quinn missed it more than she’d care to admit. 

Looking to the sky again Quinn studied the stars, taking her comfort in the never changing shapes of the constellations. It didn’t matter how the world below twisted or rotted, the stars remained untouched. She leaned back slowly, her ribs aching in protest of the movement - she’d banged herself up more than she’d let on when she’d dumped the dirt bike. The roof of the Bronco was comfortably cool against the heat radiating from her back and a sigh of contentment passed her lips. “Find joy in the small things, Quinn,” her therapist used to say.

She was surprised when Rachel laid back as well, the shift in position bringing her closer until her arm pressed up against Quinn’s. Her skin crawled at the contact, slight as it was, and she almost pulled away but managed to remain still, forcing herself to allow it.

“That’s Sagittarius,” Quinn said, the pressure in her chest begging for her to do something - anything - to take her mind off Rachel’s proximity. She pointed up at the sky and traced the constellation all the while feeling Rachel following her finger’s path. “That’s your sign, right?”

She felt more than heard Rachel take a deep breath. “You remember when my birthday was?”

“Is,” Quinn reminded gently. The end of the world didn’t mean people stopped aging, they just had no way to track it anymore. Old calendars only got them far enough to try and count the passage of years, not so much the months that made them. “Your birthday is December 18th.”

“I...” Rachel shook her head, a few locks of her inky hair falling onto Quinn’s shoulder. “Where’s your sign?”

“Leo,” Quinn said and pointed again. “August 16th.”

“August 16th,” Rachel repeated, raising her own hand and connecting the dots that made up the lion. “A lion is fitting.”

“Are you suggesting that the Archer is a good representation of yourself?”

“Maybe, but not as good as the Lion,” Rachel said, hand dropping back down onto her stomach. “I don’t suppose you can tell me my horoscope?”

“I could try.” Quinn squinted up, floundering under the question. She could try and make something up, sure, but the potential for backfire was high. “I’m no expert.”

“Seems like it,” Rachel waved up at the sky. “When did you learn about constellations?”

“My - My Dad used to... when I was little and things were good between us and he wasn’t drinking that week… He had an amateur telescope...” Quinn shrugged, not really wanting to continue down that path. Some things didn’t soften with time. “I like stars, too, just for different reasons than you used to.”

Rachel snorted, but the sound was strange and when Quinn bravely turned her head to see what had caused the difference she froze.

She was crying.

Quinn could have kicked herself, accepting all the blame for the tears she could barely see smoothly slipping out of the corner of Rachel’s eyes, trailing down her cheek, and dripping into her hair. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what she’d said - she’d made Rachel cry. Again.

“Rachel,” her voice cracked embarrassingly over two simple syllables. Two syllables - one word - that held more weight and meaning to Quinn than a full paragraph. All the books she’d buried her nose in, all the words that made them up, every sentence that struck a chord with Quinn, and all things she could still quote - none of it compared to being able to say someone’s name. 

It was now or never, and she had to reach down and find true courage; she didn’t want to fake it with Rachel, not now, not anymore.

Every muscle in her arm went taut as she reached out to lay her hand on Rachel’s trembling shoulder. When her traitorous hand stopped halfway across her own body, fingers curling back into her palm like she’d hit a wall, she gave up.

She gave up.

Too hard, too much, too easy to mess it up more than she already had. Her hand fell back, thumping hollowly against the roof, and her anxiety returned, thrumming through her body like she’d touched a live wire. Soldier ants marched through her veins making her itch all over. She had to get away. Now. 

“I’m sorry,” she threw out quickly, the words half garbled as she bailed out, rolling and hopping off the roof. Her knees ached when they slammed into the sand and she stayed there, so disgusted with herself that she could barely move. She dug her fingers into the ground, sifting through the grainy sand and clutching fistsfull, watching it spill out of her hands.

She couldn’t hold on to anything. It all slipped right through her grasp no matter how tight it was. 

“Q?” Chevy called out. Having seen her dramatic escape he was already half rising, Luz and Alex moving to follow him and come to her aid. She waved them off, offering no explanation for what had to look like the most bizarre behavior. 

Running seemed like the best idea, but she had nowhere to run to. 

Failure.

Coward.

She heard it in her father’s voice, his disapproval so clear that it made her shudder. 

Drowning in self-loathing she struggled to her feet, wincing at the creak in her joints. Quinn held up a hand, palm out towards her friends who were clearly ready to rescue her. She didn’t want to be rescued, didn’t want their “understanding” or pity. 

Like a bastard - like the ghost of her father - she’d left a woman crying alone and stumbled off into the dark, stalking amongst the vehicles like some sort of nomadic vampire hungering for something she couldn’t have. Ethan’s Suburban sat at the very edge of the camp and she made a beeline for it, knowing it was empty because everyone was still hunkered down around the fires, too sick of being in the cars to turn in for sleep yet. Quinn slipped around to the dark side of the vehicle where she wouldn’t be seen and there she collapsed back to the ground, sitting on her ass in the cold sand with her feet stretched before her, hands digging once more. She wondered if she could dig a hole big enough to disappear into. 

She didn’t cry, though her eyes burned with want the tears simply wouldn’t come. Too much time practicing holding them back and now it was a habit. She’d have a headache later for her troubles, but that was justice if ever she’d heard of it. Groaning, she tipped her head back and stared up at the moon. “It must be nice and peaceful up there,” she said to it. 

“Peace can be scary,” an accented voice replied.

Quinn snapped her head in the direction it had come from and found CJ smiling at her. 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you or intrude on your lunar musings. I thought I might take a look at my handiwork. Trade out those bandages for fresh ones.”

Her arm. Quinn had almost forgotten, and she looked down at the gauze wrapping her elbow and lifted it up, noting the muddied red color that had stained through. “Sure, why not; it would suck to die from something as lame as a scrape to the funny bone.”

CJ shrugged one shoulder and sat down next to Quinn, a small black bag ready in her hands. She worked swiftly, her cold fingers deftly prying the tape free from Quinn’s arm. “It looks good if I do say so myself. Perhaps while I’m re-wrapping this you’d like to tell me why you’re talking to the moon?”

“I don’t know you,” Quinn countered frostily, regretting her tone immediately when CJ pinched her arm. “Ow.”

“Oh, sorry ‘bout that, clumsy me,” CJ apologized wryly. “I know that you don’t know me, but that’s easily remedied by this thing called ‘talking’.”

“Are you always such a smart ass?” Quinn asked.

“Only when my patients are so annoying,” CJ said, smirking as she tightened the wrapping and finished it off with a couple of butterfly clips. “There, good as new.”

Quinn touched her fingers to the gauze and sighed heavily. “Thanks... Candy?”

“Definitely not,” CJ said, laughing.

“You wouldn’t tell me even if I guessed right, would you?” Quinn narrowed her eyes as CJ shook her head.

“A lady has to have some mystery about her.”

“But you would deny me mine?”

CJ pursed her lips and zipped up her bag, taking the time to set it carefully down at her side like she was afraid the sand might reach up and snatch it away. “Your mystery isn’t so mysterious, Quinn. You might think that the others don’t notice, but I do, and I see the way they’re cautious with you.”

Quinn sucked in a breath deep enough she thought for sure she cracked a few ribs with it, but she didn’t dare try to speak.

That didn’t appear to bother CJ in the slightest. “You’re hiding something, like we all are, but you think yours is so awful... I can’t help but wonder what it is.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Quinn bit out, alarmed to feel tears - actual tears - pricking at her eyes. 

“It’s okay to cry, Quinn. There’s no shame in feeling things,” CJ said, her hand burning against Quinn’s knee when she laid it there. “I don’t know you, but if I had to hazard a guess... There are many types of bravery out there, who are you trying so hard to be strong for? Someone here, or...”

“I can’t,” Quinn hissed, blinking free the first tear.

“We’re all lost out here,” CJ continued, removing her hand from Quinn when she felt her tense. “I think it’s nothing short of bravery to be alive, to be searching for something... Isn’t that what separates us from them?”

Quinn wanted to surrender, wanted to lean over and share the crushing weight, even if just for a second, but she was frozen, unable to act. 

“It’s not cowardice to accept comfort,” CJ said. “You’re not a coward for needing it, either, so don’t think that. You’re not betraying the dead by living, Quinn.”

The proverbial dam burst. Quinn clutched fresh fistfuls of sand and cried. She cried for Beth, for her Mom, for Rachel, for all of them.

For herself.

Moments later - seconds, minutes, hours later - her tears slowed, the last couple tickling down her neck as she drew in a deep, ragged breath. CJ remained impassively sitting next to Quinn, one eye on her patient while mostly looking out across the desert, allowing for privacy while still being there, ready to help should it be asked for. 

Quinn couldn’t remember the last time someone had held her, the last time she’d let someone hold her. As much as she wanted it she couldn’t accept or ask for it. Beth, her baby, that was the last person - precious little person - that she’d had meaningful contact with. She’d hugged her goodbye before she boarded a plane to go back to Los Angeles. Now every single time someone touched her she thought about it, re-lived it in startling detail. It tore away at her, threatening to shatter her battered, broken heart that was somehow still beating in her chest. 

Needing something, anything, to break out of the funk her collapse had brought on, to get away from the image of Beth’s bright smile and sweet blonde curls, Quinn said the very first thing that popped up in her head.

“Is Wisdom 101 required for your MD?”

CJ chuckled. “Now who’s the smart ass?”

Quinn managed a shaky smile with her trembling lips. “Thank you, for...”

“Any time,” CJ interrupted, holding up a finger to silence anything further from Quinn. “Is that not what friends are for?”

“You can use contractions like a normal person and it won’t make you sound less British,” Quinn said, wiping the lingering sticky residue of her tears away from her neck. 

“English - it won’t make me sound less English,” CJ stressed with a haughty air that made Quinn laugh. “I’m not sure how I could possibly sound more English, at any rate. Throw in a bollocks or two? God save the Queen? Offer you a biscuit?”

Shaking her head at CJ’s overly innocent expression, Quinn sighed and squinted over at her now grinning companion. “What are you doing in the States anyway?”

“I was frantically hiding my tea to insure that it didn’t get tossed into a harbor,” CJ quipped, then sighed. “I came here for Uni, actually.” She paused, swallowing so hard that Quinn heard it, and then continued, more huskily than before. “I had every intention of fleeing back home as soon as I was finished, but... things changed and then they changed again and here we are.”

Who did you lose? was the obvious question on the tip of Quinn’s tongue, but she restrained herself from asking. CJ may have opened the door already, but that didn’t mean Quinn would just boldly invite herself to dig up her new friend’s secrets. It was enough that she’d sat there while Quinn cried. 

And then she realized...

It was enough.

\---

Despite the fact that Before Rachel had been more than willing - eager even - to share her emotions with the whole world, she found that now she wanted to hide them. She wasn’t afraid to express herself, and that part of her would probably live on no matter what else was thrown her way, but she’d learned that being able to control herself wasn’t so much artistic stifling as it was being an adult. The diva storm outs were gone, cast aside along with the foot stomping and pouting and general tantrums of her youth. 

She had to be a grown up now. People depended on her.

So after Quinn abandoned her she didn’t stay on the roof where anyone could see her and hear her crying. She’d laid there with her hands over her mouth and counted to one hundred, making it all the way to forty-eight before she leaned over to make sure Quinn was really gone, and only then had she fallen off the roof with all the grace of a drunkard. Getting into the Bronco was easy enough and the windows were tinted so she knew nobody would see her inside. Hopefully they wouldn’t have seen her fling herself into the welcoming dark of her truck, either.

Inanimate objects really did make the best of friends.

She allowed herself to cry a little longer, throwing herself the best pity party she could with her Daddy’s shirt balled up in her lap and her teeth digging into her knuckles to muffle even the harshest of sobs. It only worked partially, the small keening sounds still somehow escaping.

Young Rachel would have been horrified by it - she sounded like a dying rabbit. 

Her tears eventually ran dry, replaced by panicky breaths as she hyperventilated, but that didn’t last either. Soon enough - perhaps too soon - she was left alone in the Bronco, hiccuping and wiping snot and tears on her arm, not wanting to sully the already tattered shirt she clung to in place of her long lost teddy bear.

There were many things that she’d learned and one of her very first lessons had been to expect the unexpected, but she was still surprised when Qui - the passenger door, not Quinn’s door - was yanked open again.

Too shocked to even reach for Mick she could only stare stupidly, squinting through her puffy, watery eyes at Quinn, looking for all the world like she wasn’t sure what she was doing here, either.

Quinn didn’t say anything - an irritating new habit - but Rachel could tell that she was breathing fairly heavily and hanging onto the door like she’d fall over if it weren’t for the support.

Anger swelled back up, stinging her with fresh tears that burned so badly in her tired eyes that she wanted nothing more than to shut them, let the tears go, and not open them again until Quinn vanished again. She’d never been so furious with a person. How dare she show up once more at Rachel’s door looking terrified and hopeful and about to collapse? Like she’d come to some sort of realization and decided that it meant she was free to torment Rachel’s soul just that bit more. 

She turned her head and looked out the window away from Quinn, hiding her new tears and avoiding the one person who’d landed back in her life, it seemed, only to cause her more pain than she could handle. A constant reminder of things never to be found again, of people who were gone, of a life that Rachel had dreamed of for so long and wasn’t ever going to get to have. 

How dare she come back.

Rachel hated her, she hated every inch of the stupid face, those broken, haunted eyes, that tentative smile. She was fine before Quinn and now everything was falling apart.

And why? For what? Because the universe or God or something decided that she needed to suffer more? A punishment for her youth?

The door clicked weakly shut and Rachel peeked over her shoulder to see if Quinn had left her behind again.

She hadn’t.

Quinn sat stiffly, awkwardly settled in the passe - in her seat, and she was looking back at Rachel across the bench. They couldn’t even see each other all that well in the gloom but Rachel could feel it, the weight of Quinn Fabray looking right at her, through her.

More than she hated Quinn she lo - no - no, that was impossible. No. But she didn’t hate Quinn, or she did… Rachel frowned at herself and sniffled mightily, not wanting to wipe her nose on her arm like a gorilla with Quinn sitting there with her. 

Rachel would have snorted but that would have been a disaster, so she rolled her eyes instead. 

She didn’t hate Quinn, she hated herself, and Quinn… Quinn hated herself, too. Rachel knew that, she could see it and feel it when they were near each other. For what she didn’t know, but it was nearly palpable, so clearly was it spoken in silence. It was in the way Quinn acted, her body language, her stumbling speech... so many signs - too many - and she’d put them away, shoved them down into her subconscious because she hadn’t wanted to deal with the idea that Quinn could be that damaged.

Not when Quinn had always been so stubbornly strong.

It was terrifying to think about, let alone openly acknowledge.

And yet there they were, both hating so much and suffering for it.

It was enough.

They’d both suffered enough. More than the lion’s share. 

Maybe, just maybe, if she could meet Quinn halfway they could somehow stop. They could be better, they could end all the suffering without more tragedy.

She’d have to be careful and go slow, easing into it for both of their sakes. Ethan had already paid and Rachel would be damned before she lost another person because she was conflicted.

They didn’t need words, not yet. That could wait until both of them even knew what to say.

Moving slowly so Quinn could see what she was doing, Rachel reached over and gently placed her hand on top of Quinn’s, stilling her fidgeting fingers.

She heard Quinn’s sharp intake of breath but pushed ahead, prying Quinn’s trembling fingers away from each other and threading hers into their place. It was familiar; Quinn had done the same thing earlier, made that first step. It was safe territory. 

Quinn’s hand was tense at first, her fingers resistant and board stiff. Then she exhaled, almost sighing, and her grip relaxed. Their palms met, callouses scraping together, and there they were, sitting together and it was the end of the world...

Except it wasn’t. Not really.

They’d suffered, but they’d survived.

And they would survive this too.

\---

TBC...


	7. Chapter Six

When Rachel’s eyelids fluttered open in the morning she felt more than slightly groggy. Which wasn’t that surprising, really, given the emotional workout of the night. Still, for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel that startling rush of anxiety over having fallen asleep or the lingering aftereffects of yet another nightmare. In fact, as she stirred and started to stretch the kinks out of her neck and shoulders she felt almost lethargic. Like she’d gotten a blessed weekend off and was planning on spending the day in her pajamas, napping and watching daytime television. 

Bewildered, she tried to shake off the new-old feeling until it all came flooding back when she realized just where she was. 

In the night, after sleep had finally taken hold of her, she had shifted, slumping over until her head landed... well, landed in Quinn’s lap. There was a hand in her hair and her cheek was pillowed on the well developed muscle of Quinn’s thigh.

And that feeling - the one that felt so out of place to her now - it was contentment.

Contentment. In the zombie fucking apocalypse. 

Only the end of the world could take something good and twist it into something dangerous.

Quinn stirred as though she sensed that Rachel was awake. Her eyes dragged open to half-slits, a glimmer of murky green peering down, and then they flew open.

They stared at each other, Rachel’s head turned at an uncomfortable angle to be able to see Quinn. She noted their hands still tangled together, and somehow the awkwardness Rachel was expecting never surfaced.

It should have been awkward. Quinn should have bolted like a startled doe. Rachel should have been fumbling to find something to say, to apologize for her sleep-assisted boldness, but it didn’t happen. None of it happened.

Instead, Quinn smiled.

“Hi,” Rachel said, simply.

Baby steps.

“Hi,” Quinn replied, slowly pulling her hand away from its nest in Rachel’s hair.

Rachel sat up but didn’t release her hold on Quinn’s hand, not yet. “I feel like I slept through my alarm or something.”

“We probably missed breakfast,” Quinn joked, rolling her head until the muted pop of vertebra realigning was heard. 

“Don’t say breakfast,” Rachel groaned. She turned away from the fascinating sight of Quinn first thing in the morning and looked out the window to see where everyone else was. It appeared that they had, in fact, slept in, and somehow nobody had seen fit to wake them up.

But if everyone else was up... she could see Chevy and Luz talking with Ollie, all three of them standing in a circle staring at a map. 

They knew where Quinn was. 

“We should probably see what’s going on,” Quinn said, and finally, reluctantly let go of Rachel’s hand.

Rachel bit her tongue to keep from suggesting that they wait just a few more minutes, not wanting to give up the moment yet. She knew better than that.

That’s why they were playing with fire. Or at least she was. 

Baby steps.

Quinn left the Bronco first and Rachel followed swiftly after. She pushed her sunglasses onto her face and scowled up at the sun. Her eyes were tender and the glare was not helping. It was almost like having a hangover. She let Quinn go ahead of her, following in the tracks left behind. They didn’t stand next to each other, something they’d agreed to without saying anything. Quinn went immediately to Chevy’s side and Rachel drifted over to Ollie.

“We’re going to need to stop again,” he told her, right to the point.

Who needed coffee when a single sentence would work just as well to wake someone up?

She immediately felt sick, a rush of cold coming over her as she stared from one face to another. “We just...”

“It wasn’t enough, but if we can get one more good fuel run we can probably make the coast,” Chevy said, just as bluntly. “Probably.”

“Probably,” Rachel repeated. God, did they all wake up on the wrong side of the car?

“We’re close to another town; it’s small but there’s got to be a gas station,” Luz put in pointing out a tiny blip on the map.

Probably. Got to be. Another town, another chance for salvation, another opportunity for them to lose more than they gained. 

“I’ll go.”

Rachel’s head snapped in Quinn’s direction so quickly her neck popped and heat moved up the abused muscles to settle hotly at the base of her skull. The instant denial died in her throat, coming out as nothing more than a half-whine. A pathetically mewled objection that Rachel didn’t have the power to make. 

The awkwardness she’d been expecting after waking up so innocently but intimately close to Quinn finally made it’s appearance. Everyone else, everyone not Quinn or Rachel, shuffled their feet or looked off into the distance with pursed lips. Rachel would have been embarrassed, or maybe annoyed, if she wasn’t too busy trying to get air to her lungs and aching head. 

She couldn’t tell Quinn no. It wasn’t her place. There was no way she could object as strenuously as she’d like, not without throwing herself too far into the open. Would she rather it was someone else? Ollie or Kevin? Maybe one of Quinn’s friends?

Ethan?

Instead she was forced into silence, yet again, biting down on her tongue to keep herself from screaming.

“You’ll have to take a car,” Chevy said, dark eyes flicking back and forth between Rachel and Quinn. “It’s - you should take someone with you.”

“Quinn, are you su- “

“I’ll go too,” Rachel input before someone else could beat her to the punch. “We can take the Bronco.”

“Rachel...”

“No! No way...”

Kevin and Ollie both started to rant, voices overlapping in their urgency. Rachel didn’t bother with looking at them, too busy trying to read whatever Quinn was communicating with only an eyebrow and the small upwards tilt of her lips. Was that a challenge?

“Rachel, you can’t - you’re too important to the group. I’ll go,” Ollie finished, his hand heavy on Rachel’s shoulder, like he could hold her in place with just that small contact. 

“You’re like the glue that holds us together,” Kevin continued, almost pleadingly. “We need you here.”

“I want to do this - that’s what I want - and what we really need is gasoline,” Rachel said firmly turning to each man in turn as she squashed their arguments. “How am I supposed to be anybody’s leader if I don’t lead the charge? Maybe in the military they’d do it differently, maybe I’d stay behind and send out the troops with my plans and strategies. This isn’t the military, and I’m not an Officer or even a Sergeant,” she paused long enough to look to Chevy for confirmation and smiled at him when he gave her a curt nod. “I’m Rachel - Rachel Barbra Berry - and you’ve all followed me for whatever reason. I need to prove to myself that I’m capable of being that leader you all treat me like. Alright? So stop trying to protect me and let me lead.”

More silence. Rachel almost started laughing because of it. Ever since Quinn had shown up it was like even the desert was afraid to make a sound. 

Luz actually did start laughing, quietly but it was there, and Rachel jumped at the unfamiliar sound. “Oh, so that’s what you were talking about,” she said to Quinn.

Rachel narrowed her eyes and for the first time in a long time executed a Diva Storm Out - or, at least, a new version of it. She didn’t roll her eyes or huff, didn’t shake her head, instead just turning around with her shoulders set and striding determinedly back toward her Bronco. The only attitude she gave came when Kevin called after her. He was no doubt ready to try again to convince her to stay behind or let him take her place, and in response she pulled Mick from his holster and held him aloft. 

“You always were a bit of a pistol,” Quinn commented softly, minutes later when she joined Rachel at the back of the Bronco. Rachel snorted and continued her mental prep list, taking stock of everything in the vehicle that would need to be transferred just in case they didn’t come back.

“Thank you. Can you go get the gas cans? I’ll start moving stuff around to make room,” Rachel said, waving her hand at the various bags. 

“Sure. Oh and, Broadway?”

She canted her head slightly, listening to Quinn even as she reached for the first duffle bag of many that would have to be moved.

“Chevy said that he’s served under a lot of officers and sergeants... and that you would give some of the best of them a run for their money.”

Rachel blushed, feeling it burn across her cheeks and up to the tops of her ears. 

She turned to tell Quinn - to admit that she wasn’t going to let Quinn go without her, not again. That she couldn’t let Quinn go gallivanting off on her own, stealing all the glory. But, Quinn was already walking away, leaving Rachel smiling to herself.

“Oorah,” she said, shaking her head as she reached for another bag.

\---

Normally when she went out on a “mission” Quinn felt apprehension, at least a first, followed by the buzz of adrenaline in her system. It wasn’t so much fear - anticipation of danger, yes - but not fear. Like she was sitting in the front car of a rollercoaster that was approaching that first big drop. 

It was different, this time, riding in Rachel’s Bronco once again and heading for that drop together. She’d gone on missions with Luz, Alex, and Chevy before and been fine, hadn’t felt any different about it. But now she kept stealing glances at Rachel, unable to shake the feeling that maybe Rachel’s seat belt wasn’t going to hold this time. Maybe she’ll survive the drop, but on that first loop when they are hanging upside down so far above the ground it will give way and there’ll be nothing she can do to save her. She’d have to watch her fall and know that it’s the end.

Her imagination was as vivid as it had ever been and Quinn knew there’d be no chasing away the thought or image of Rachel free falling into nothingness in her mind - so she did the only thing she could to shut it up.

Rachel had left her hand in the middle of the seat again, no doubt on purpose, keeping the lifeline there for Quinn should she want to take it. Quinn took a moment to appreciate her tenacity and reached for that hand. The second their skin met her mind went from conjuring horrifying things back to its normal programming. Back to yelling at her for daring to touch someone so boldly.

Quinn held more tightly to Rachel’s hand and refused to give in, smiling to herself at the small triumph.

If Rachel was surprised by the action she didn’t show it, at least not on her face, but her hand did wiggle in Quinn’s grasp until their fingers were comfortably and familiarly linked. 

Later they might be screaming or running and one or both of them could get hurt or killed; Quinn had no way of knowing. There was no way she could predict the future or even really prepare for all the possible outcomes and in the past she’d let that thought eat at her.

But for now she was riding in a car, holding Rachel’s hand, and being brave.

Little victories.

When Rachel pulled the car to a stop just outside the town they were raiding for gas, the first thrill of adrenaline slammed into Quinn’s system. She felt like her skin was vibrating with energy, her muscles twitching, primed and ready for a fight or to run. Rachel must have been feeling it, too, because she was out of the car like a shot, scrambling up the side with a pair of binoculars.

Quinn was kind of proud of her.

She didn’t join Rachel on the roof, instead walking around the nose to the driver’s side and craning her head back to watch Rachel scout the town for trouble. “Well?”

“It’s alarmingly still,” Rachel called down to her. “I hate to be a pessimist, but somehow a lack of things moving doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Pretty sure ghost towns are supposed to be unsettling,” Quinn replied. “Especially after the apocalypse.”

“It doesn’t make any sense, though. Where’d they all go? Weekending in Vegas?”

“We won’t know until we go down there, Broadway.”

Rachel hopped off the roof, landing a few paces from Quinn and handing over the binoculars. “Closest gas station is right at the edge of town. I feel like saying ‘I smell a trap’ but...”

Quinn carefully laid the binoculars down on the vacated seat and then planted her hands on her hips, swivelling to face Rachel. “What’s the plan then?”

“Drive down. Wait to see if there’s any movement. If there’s not check for gas, get the gas, and leave. If there is...”

“Haul ass?” Quinn suggested, smiling when Rachel snorted in response.

“I was going to say ‘execute a tactical retreat’ because it sounded more dignified, but yes.”

“One change,” Quinn said, holding up a finger. “I’m driving.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes, and for a moment Quinn was certain she was going to simply bolt for the driver side and try to secure herself in the seat. “You’re driving?”

“Rachel, I solemnly swear not to wreck your Bronco,” Quinn promised. “I know I don’t have the greatest track record, but I’ll take good care of it.”

“Fine, but one scratch and you’re paying for it.”

Quinn looked over at the beat up Bronco, covered in dirt and more scratches than she could count, and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Hey,” Rachel huffed, keys dangling from a finger as she held them out for Quinn. “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.”

“Did you just Star Wars us?” Quinn asked, blinking hard, sure she’d imagined that. “It really is the end of the world.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Hollywood.” Rachel shook the keychain, quirking an eyebrow.

“Oh, now it’s on,” Quinn told her and snatched the keys. Shaking her head, she pushed the binoculars aside and climbed into Rachel’s seat, wracking her brain to think of an appropriate counter-quote. Unfortunately her train of thought was fully derailed when she knocked her knee painfully on the steering column, having failed to adjust the seat beforehand. “Ow! Jesus!”

“Problems?” Rachel asked primly, already settled with her seatbelt on while Quinn rubbed at her knee, sure that it was bleeding. 

“No, just a new respect for Gandalf,” Quinn muttered, jerking hard on the seat lever and sighing when she no longer felt trapped by the steering wheel. “Hobbits.” 

The time for joking passed swiftly as the Bronco rumbled its way down into the town, and Quinn felt like they were slowly descending into Hell.

Of course that was when all the excellent movie quotes popped up so very unhelpfully. 

She couldn’t - wouldn’t - give voice to them, not now. The Bronco rolled to a stop just next to one of the pumps and she managed to line up the gas cap within easy reach of the nozzle out of habit. 

Nothing moved.

Quinn nearly held her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Nothing. Not even a damn tumbleweed.

“Well...?” she whispered, glancing over to see Rachel gripping the door handle so hard her knuckles were visibly blanching. 

“Yeah,” Rachel replied distractedly, hand still holding the door shut. She just licked at her lips and kept looking from left to right, scanning for movement. “I’ll - I’ll fill up the cans. You can stand guard.”

Quinn nodded and reached up onto the dashboard for her shotgun, happy to have the reassuring weight back in her hands. Before she’d felt naked without her cell phone; now she could barely move without her shotgun within sight. “I’ll go investigate the station real quick.”

They didn’t count to three or anything so absurd, merely making brief eye contact, something passing between them in a single weighted look. They moved in tandem then, throwing open doors and freezing again.

Still nothing.

Rachel headed for the back of the Bronco and the gas cans while Quinn circled around the pump, warily eyeing the dark interior of the gas station. Goosebumps erupted on her skin and she shivered, the sickly feeling of something not right settling over her. If she had hackles they would have been rising as her ears strained for any sign of the trouble her body was telling her was coming.

It couldn’t be that easy. 

She wasn’t ever that lucky. They weren’t ever that lucky.

The click of nails on wood sounded from around the corner, and she knew that whatever luck they thought they had carried with them had just run out. 

“Rachel...” she started to say - to warn - but it was too little, too late. 

The dog wasn’t Cujo, wasn’t massive or even the type of dog that ordinarily would have made Quinn fearful... 

It was a goddamned poodle. Not one of those yappy miniature ones, of course; this one was about the size of a labrador, its curls matted and drooping. Not a doberman, like in the Resident Evil games or films. Or a rottweiler or pitbull.

A poodle. 

But it was only one, and Quinn was sure she could put the poor thing out of its misery before it could do anything to them. 

“I see it,” Rachel said shakily from the back of the Bronco, clearly waiting for Quinn to deal with the undead dog.

Quinn almost felt bad as she shouldered her shotgun and took aim. “Sorry, doggie.”

“Quinn?”

More clicks, blunt nails on various surfaces. 

Lots of nails.

Lots of dogs.

“Can you get back in the car?” Quinn asked almost soothingly, as the poodle pulled back its lip to reveal chipped and rotted fangs. Out of the corner of her eye she saw another dog approaching appearing far worse for wear, dragging a back leg, its ribcage exposed and half its face torn away. 

“There are two back here, close to the truck. I don’t think I can...”

How foolish they’d been - how stupid - thinking it could be that easy. They could stand there and wait until there was no hope for escape or they could force the inevitable. 

Keeping an eye on the mangled mess of the other dog still slumping towards her, Quinn raised her shotgun again, resting her cheek against the stock and aiming for the poodle.

“When I shoot...”

“Yeah,” Rachel called back, clearly anticipating the hastily thought up plan.

Quinn wished she could see her.

The shotgun went off, bucking back into her shoulder where a bruise would form later. The poodle dropped with a wet yelp, a gory hole in its chest, and Hell broke loose. 

Moving out of instinct and a fair bit of terror Quinn jumped forward, heading toward the gas station. If she could just get around the back there would be a ladder and she could climb up to the roof; taking the rest of the pack out from there should be easy.

She heard Rachel’s pistol firing and another yelp, twisting her head briefly to see where she was. There was a flash of dark hair and then Rachel was yelling something. Yelling her name.

Quinn turned too fast, suddenly knowing why Rachel was screaming at her.

Another body crashed into her, the shotgun going off again as Quinn reflexively jerked the trigger. The other dog she hadn’t seen hit her with all the force of a linebacker, her head bouncing as she hit the ground and hazy dots swimming around in her vision just before snapping teeth filled it. Searing pain ripped up her torso, shocking her into action. She set the rifle horizontally across the dogs chest, using it to try and push back, to keep those teeth from tearing into her jugular. 

Her arms trembled with the effort of keeping the mutt at bay and she closed her eyes, wondering when her strength would give out, if it would hurt as badly as she was expecting. Quinn hoped it would be over fast. 

She thought she heard a little girl laughing.

Three shots rang out in rapid succession and the dog stopped fighting. The brute dropped limp, right on top of her, and Quinn’s breath left her in one big whoosh. Blackness crept up, circling her eyes and slowly started to drag her under...

“Quinn!”

Quinn’s eyes snapped back open and she really wished they hadn’t. The headache was instant and so intense that she needed to throw up. The body on hers was shoved off and she rolled to her side to empty her stomach of its meager contents. She heaved, coughed, and choked until there was nothing left to give, slumping back into the arms that had at some point circled her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, wincing at the sour taste in her mouth. 

“Am I okay?” Rachel shrilly repeated, right in Quinn’s ringing ear. 

“Turn down the volume,” Quinn mumbled, closing her eyes again against the dizzyness. “This hangover sucks.”

“For fuck’s sake, Quinn.”

And then Quinn was being lifted, or at least Rachel was trying to help her up to her feet. Her legs wobbled and Quinn thought for a brief, terrifying moment that she’d been paralyzed again. But then she realized she could still feel them, her knees were just a little weak. Rachel held onto her tightly, and when she adjusted her grip one of her hands brushed along Quinn’s hip and the pain returned, screaming to the forefront of Quinn’s mind.

“Ow, ow, ow!” She pushed the offending hand away and swayed on her feet. “I’m fine, stop touching stuff!”

“You’re not fine,” Rachel retorted, coming around to where Quinn could actually see her. “You’re bleeding... did it bite you?”

“No, I think it’s just a scratch,” Quinn said, ignoring the expression on Rachel’s face in favor of finding out what exactly felt like it was on fire. She lifted the end of her shirt, exposing her stomach to the bite of the chilly air, and looked down. There were four long, angry, red gouges in her skin from just to the side of her hip bone down. “Son of a bitch.”

Rachel knelt down in front of her and Quinn almost made a comment, stopping herself at the last moment, figuring that a head injury was not really a good excuse for being an ass. 

“I - I don’t think it’s deep enough to be...” Rachel trailed off, pressing a finger alongside the deepest tear. 

“Would you stop poking it?” Quinn asked and recoiled from the touch, stomach muscles clenching at the contact. 

“Would you stop being a baby?” Rachel fired back. 

Quinn sighed. “Look, let’s just get the fucking gas and get out of here, alright?”

“No, not until I at least put something over that.”

They glared at each other, Rachel still at Quinn’s feet and Quinn still ridiculously holding up her shirt, neither wanting to budge from their decision. 

With a huff Quinn dropped her shirt back down and waved a free hand towards the Bronco. “Fine.”

While Rachel went to retrieve what little medical supplies she had stashed away Quinn bent and scooped her shotgun back up, sighing in relief when it was back in her arms. She looked around at the scattered bodies of the pack and shook her head. “Fucking dogs. Fucking zombie dogs... fucking apocalypse.” The whole thing was stupid, feeling like she was trapped in one of Puck’s video games. 

“I found some antiseptic,” Rachel offered, holding the bottle up for Quinn to see. Not that she cared much; it was going to sting whether she could read the name on the bottle or not. 

“Fabulous,” Quinn muttered and lifted her shirt again. Her quick mental preparation for the burn of the liquid didn’t help much. She still hissed at the sensation and her eyes still welled up with tears she couldn’t help. 

“Sorry,” Rachel said, wincing in sympathy as she tried to coat the whole injury as liberally as she dared. “Just let me tape some gauze...”

To take her mind off the sharp agony racing up and down that side of her body, Quinn focused on watching Rachel. Watching the way she bit her lip as she concentrated on her job, how that lip was trembling just noticeably at the corners, and the dewiness to Rachel’s eyes under the furrow of her forehead, her eyebrows drawn together with a frown. 

“This is why,” Quinn told her. “This is why you’re a good leader, Rachel. You don’t have to be Rambo, or Xena, or any other hero you’ve read about or seen on screen. You care, and everyone knows it and they trust you to make the decisions because they know you care enough about them to worry, to try and keep them from harm.”

Rachel paused, her fingers hovering over the line of tape she’d been applying, looking up with the most heartbreaking expression Quinn had seen on her yet.

Doubt.

“You have the rest - the charisma, the stubbornness, the drive of a natural born leader... but you care. No one’s a nameless face to you, even when we all feel like we’re teetering on the edge of extinction. It’s important.” Quinn finished applying the tape herself and dropped her shirt and then reached down to help Rachel back to her feet. “You’re important, Rachel, and you saved my life. Thank you.”

“You are the single most frustrating person I’ve ever met,” Rachel told her, looking anywhere but at Quinn. “You’re welcome, and thank you for saying that.”

“Any time,” Quinn replied, shrugging it off as no big deal. “So, gasoline?”

\---

TBC...


	8. Chapter Seven

Rachel had always had such expectations for her life. Huge aspirations to strive for, fighting past so many obstacles in her quest for that dream, and to make it hers, to own it and show it off to all those who had previously stood in her way or questioned her ability. She’d called it “Broadway” but in reality she’d simply wanted people to notice her, to appreciate her. It was a need to be seen as special; she wanted respect - wanted to escape the bonds her classmates and peers had tied her down with early in life. Because of her fathers, her face, her personality... Because of so many different things – little things that nobody seemed to bother with if it was about anyone other than Rachel Berry. She’d always been different, never understanding why that was so bad, why she was walking around with a target on her face and back. The attacks came from all sides: stabbed in the back by supposed friends, assaulted verbally and physically to her face by everyone, friend or otherwise. Why had acknowledging that she was different - that she felt special and worthy - made her so un-loveable? Wasn’t everyone different? Those were the questions she’d tried to find the answers for all her life. Her therapist, fathers, her new friends later in life - they had all assured her that there was nothing wrong with her, there was nothing wrong with being different.

Different was a good thing.

Hearing it had never helped; she still had an empty space that couldn’t be filled. And when she still couldn’t find a way to sate her hunger for acceptance she threw herself headlong in to her voice and that dream of bright lights and adoring fans. Her fans would love her. They would call her name and look at her with stars in their eyes. They’d grow up hearing her voice and wishing that someday they could be like her. She would be everything she ever wanted, get everything she’d desired.

It was all there, waiting for her at the end of the race she was running.

But the thing was… the fame, the wealth, the fans – once she had them, once her dream had become reality - she still felt like something was missing. It wasn’t quite right, and she didn’t know where to go from there. She’d created her reality - pushed and pulled and broken and repaired herself to build that person she thought she wanted to be, and she’d never felt more alone. Friends, boyfriends, agents and managers, make-up teams, and screaming hordes of fans who all shouted their love for her… and still nothing had changed. Success left nothing but the taste of ash in her mouth and the painful memories of her younger self dripping in milk while classmates mooed at her. Memories of taunting and exclusion and standing in a puddles of ice and corn-syrup, sticky face covered as she cried over her continued failure at being anything other than a target.

Worse still, while she still loved to sing, singing itself was slowly evolving into something altogether different. Darker, danker - a prison that she’d put the bars on herself. The stage became her cage and her voice lost its depth. She was singing to shadows, no longer pleading to be heard and no longer so earnest in her desperation - the song of a prisoner who knew they were never going to get out.

She sang in the shower, in the car, while cooking, during stupid karaoke nights at bars and felt again that longing to be heard and understood, when it was just her for her. But on the stage and under those lights, covered in make-up and dressed up as someone who would never be Rachel Berry, the feeling dimmed.  
She’d started to lose her connection to the words coming from her throat.

It was devastating.

Rachel was lost. Her whole life had been about pursuing that one dream and once she’d gotten it… she didn’t know where to go. What was she supposed to do after the finish line had been reached? Where could she run? Sometimes she’d thought about marriage, babies, and that cute little brownstone, thinking that - surely that - would fill the void. It could bring the magic back.

Except the world ended with a full system shut-down and reset, and suddenly there was no Broadway. No lights. No applause. There was death and destruction and disease. Her fathers were gone; her friends were gone. She was at the beginning of a whole new race, one that she’d been wondering about, but not the one she’d wanted to run.

She was terrified of the tangled maze of a route, not knowing where this new course would take her or what hidden dangers it might hold. Even more daunting, she had nobody to pace her, no running buddy to encourage her along the way and keep her spirits up when she hit that “runners wall” – and she had, multiple times; she’d smacked into it like an out of control semi-truck. Over and over. Her body was littered with the scars and her metaphorical heart was so mangled she was sometimes shocked it was still thumping along.

At one point she’d tried to stop it herself. Just off the starting line she’d stopped, saw where she was headed, and nearly ended it there and then. It would have been so easy to throw in the towel, to declare that she couldn’t do it, that she wasn’t ready.

After finding her home, her Daddy’s… remains… she’d been filled with such despair that the weight of it crushed her down onto the floor. Crippling fear and overwhelming sadness weren’t new emotions, but she was alone and so very tired of having to fight all the time. Every breath, every day being Rachel Berry was a struggle.

Anything further, any step outside of her childhood home would have only lead to death anyway. It was inevitable to her at that point. She was going to die and if she stepped outside the path wouldn’t change; it would just prolong it, and she wasn’t sure that was a journey she could take alone. Thinking about it, how hard it was going to be to struggle and fight to live another day and another, all on her own, until death finally caught up to her… she’d decided that it would be much easier to go out quickly, to put herself out of her misery and avoid a horrible death. She’d found Mick, her Daddy’s pistol, hidden in his office. It was the first gun she’d ever held, and she sat on the couch and considered it, all the ins and outs, pros and cons.

The muzzle was cold when she put it in her mouth, the metal foreign and disgusting, unyielding against the tentative touch of her curious tongue.

Everyone was gone. Everyone. Her finger had twitched against the trigger and then she’d closed her eyes and thought not about Broadway, not about fame and success, but about young Rachel Berry singing into a fake microphone in the back of her parents’ car. She thought of dress up parties and sing-along Wednesdays, of being picked up even as a pre-teen and whirled around the kitchen while they all made dinner. She remembered them fixing knee scrapes and bee stings, letting her sleep nestled between them when she had a bad dream. There was nothing in the world better or more comforting than her Dads – no place safer.

She’d pulled the trigger firmly and gasped when the gun remained still in her hand. There’d been a click and then nothing, but not the nothing she’d wanted. Jammed – it had jammed.

She saw the photo, the one currently tucked behind the visor in her Bronco, and realized what she’d just done, tried to do…

Mick - unnamed at the time - clattered against the hardwood as she dropped the pistol, and she’d sat there and sobbed. Cried and cried and cried, flooded with memories and too many emotions all at once to be able to discern what she was actually feeling.

She’d always thought she was fated for Broadway, fated to live her life on stage performing and telling her story through music to any who would listen, but now it seemed that wasn’t the end. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to die on stage and not by her own hand either. It wasn’t her destiny; she hadn’t found it yet and if she wanted to, if she wanted to know why Rachel Berry was put on the Earth, she’d have to be alive.

So she lived and she struggled, she shouted at thunder and beat her fists against sand and death. She became new, a phoenix rising from the ashes like she’d always thought she was doing being a Broadway darling.

The music returned, a balm to her battered soul.

Sometimes she hated God, hated that he could be so cruel by giving her back her voice and granting her wishes in such a way.

He responded by giving her Quinn.

Quinn, who was so angry and beautifully broken, who fostered familiar and terrifying feelings that Rachel couldn’t ignore no matter how hard she tried.

Another curve in the race opening up a new path she couldn’t see the end of. There was no way to know where the end was, if there even was one, but the idea that it could be there, looming on the ever distant horizon... Rachel didn’t know if she should be hopeful or scared of what it could be. Would there be a finish line? Would they end together to the cheers of those watching them from the sidelines? Or would Quinn, her running mate, fall back? Would she be injured and unable to continue, would Quinn give up? Would Rachel? Could they somehow limp together across that final marker?

Rachel didn’t know – but she wanted to.

And right now she was looking at another obstacle, something in the distance that could be a blessing or just a mirage.

Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. They’d made it, ragged and exhausted and stupidly hopeful, and Rachel couldn’t believe in it.

It looked just like every other decaying city she’d seen over the years of her nomadic existence. Cars littered the grounds like tombstones and the buildings were mostly dilapidated – windows smashed out, roofs caving in. The parade fields had all died and were left barren, cluttered with garbage and scorched patches of dirt where grass had once been maintained by zealous Marines.

Now this dead town, this place that had once meant home and safety to those who had lived within its impressive defenses, now it was something different. It was special because amongst all that ruin there was hope again.

As much as she wanted to be excited, to fall to her knees and stare in dumb disbelief at the reality that her journey could be almost over, she knew that it could never be that easy. Nothing ever came for free. She couldn’t let her guard down, even for a second.

She wondered what it would cost them this time, whose blood would wind up being spilled so the rest of them could scurry off into the sunset.

\---

Quinn had always been fascinated by the ocean and with water in general, especially after her accident.  
Learning to walk again had been amazingly painful, harder even than childbirth. When her physical therapist had started working with her in the pool she’d been certain she’d drown and she’d occasionally wondered if that wouldn’t be an okay way for it all to end, sitting on the bottom of a pool with legs like weights watching air bubbles serenely float up to the distant surface. There was something about the water; it was magical – seeing the sun above shining down towards her, beckoning her up to the light – back to life.

Her darker thoughts never could stand up against that beacon, and she’d always made it back to the surface.

She felt that way again now, looking out over the ruins of humanity and seeing the distant glitter of the ocean so close and yet so very far beyond her reach. Seeing it once again represent the freedom she so desperately yearned for.

Strangely she also felt similarly when she looked at Rachel. Like she was the surface of the water calling  
out while Quinn was still stubbornly seated on the tile floor with her unresponsive legs. It made Quinn feel paralyzed all over again and trying to take that first step that she wanted but was scared of, too.

Quinn shook her head and pushed all thoughts of strangeness away, tucking them back to be mulled over at a better time. If she ever found one. She looked down at her legs - her working legs - and flexed her toes in her boots.

She didn’t believe in luck. How could she? With the life she had lived to believe in such a thing would mean accepting that she had the worst luck of any other person living on the planet.

Or previously living on the planet.

She didn’t really want to think about that either.

Quinn believed in hard work, determination, and blood, sweat, and tears. That was how things happened; that was how she made her own luck. But sometimes, usually just about when she thought she had it all figured out, someone threw a curveball.

They’d been incredibly lucky in that “too good to be true” kind of way that had her stomach in knots. Like she was at a car lot, seeing all those shiny, gleaming cars that promised her the best deal of her life but stopped working once she bought one.

A hand had reached out to them, offering everything they always wanted: human contact.

Out on the ocean, safely and agonizingly just beyond their reach, sat a ship impossibly captained by a gentleman who greeted them as Captain Jed Bitterman. He was the answer to all their feverish prayers and heat stroke induced delusions. Alone on the water, unable to crew his ship by himself, this crusty man of the sea who was used to battling nature and circumstance called out on the radio and offered help to those trapped on land.

To the others – to Alex, Chevy, even Luz – it was cause for celebration. They were saved.

Quinn couldn’t bring herself to cheer with them, forcing a smile that was all lip and no teeth.

There was always a catch.

Pregnant at sixteen.

Paralyzed her senior year, right after getting her life together.

So many other things. She thought of Lucy and Russell Fabray, of being homeless and lost and so terribly angry.

She felt Rachel approach before she saw her, fingers twitching in anticipation right before Rachel’s hand slid into hers, the grip warm and reassuring. The coil in her stomach unwound, loosening just a notch from the simple contact she was beginning to crave in a way that she didn’t want to think too hard on.

“Do you ever get tired of being a survivor?” Rachel whispered, leaning ever so slightly into Quinn’s side, not quite touching but close enough for Quinn to feel her body warmth.

“Every damn day,” Quinn replied and sighed, shoulders slumping under the weight that never fully left her.  
“You and me… Rachel, we’ve been surviving our whole lives.”

“I think – I think that one day I’d like to stop surviving and try living.”

Quinn looked down to see Rachel gnawing on a raw bottom lip, her forehead pinched as she stared out at the base sitting in front of them.

“It’s not today,” Quinn said, smiling a little more genuinely when Rachel turned her face up, dark eyes scanning Quinn’s face. “Today, we survive again and maybe we can live tomorrow.”

Rachel’s expression hardened as her eyes flicked back and forth across Quinn. “Can you do something for me?”

“I think I owe you a few thousand favors.” Quinn shifted a few inches, twisting to face Rachel fully. The hand not encased in Rachel’s grip itched with the urge to touch – to try and smooth that furrowed brow, or wipe the dirt off Rachel’s cheek. She suppressed the desire easily enough, more than used to squashing feelings lest she reveal them and have them rejected.

Rachel drew in a deep breath and squeezed Quinn’s hand. “I’m not done… I – I have things I’d like to say to you, eventually. I want you to promise me that you won’t – You can’t promise me that you won’t die, I know that and I hate it because I want to beg you to stay – but can you please, please, promise me that you won’t try to be a hero, just for today. I don’t – I don’t know how this – Quinn, I care about you, not just because you’re someone from Before, but about you and I don’t think – I know that watching you die…”

Quinn stiffened and wiggled her hand until Rachel let go; she’d tucked her chin to her chest, feet kicking at the ground, and Quinn tried to still the trembling in her fingers as she raised Rachel’s chin back up, the sight of her tears hitting her like a kick to the gut. “Rachel, you’re not supposed to be this sweet. I don’t deserve it. But I – I care about you too. I promise that I’ll be careful, as long as you do the same. I can’t be held accountable for my actions if they’re in response to saving someone else. Not when you’d do exactly the same.”

The nod she received in response was jerky and followed up by the smallest of sniffles. Quinn did the only thing she could think – the one thing she didn’t want to do but had to do. Her mind was screaming no, but she’d already opened her arms and Rachel, in a way that reminded Quinn in a poignantly painful way of teenage Rachel, jumped forward into the embrace, thin arms circling around Quinn’s neck and tugging her down.

They held each other, Rachel’s face pressed into the hollow of Quinn’s throat, Quinn’s arms loosely wrapped around Rachel’s waist.

The world kept turning.

So Quinn stayed with her feet firmly planted but her head in the clouds, daring to dream about “maybes.”

\---

An hour or so later Quinn wasn’t certain that she wasn’t having a heart-attack; aside for the lack of pain in her left arm and shoulder she was pretty sure she had all the right symptoms. Rachel had left to do her “leadership” duties, which basically meant checking morale and issuing last minute reassurances to the people who so depended on her.

The second that Quinn had her over-stuffed backpack on her heart started to race, thumping so hard she thought she was going to crack a rib. Her hands were shaking, her mouth had gone unbearably dry, and she was already sweating, eyes burning with the sting as it slipped from her hairline down her face.

“Dude,” Chevy commented with a side-eyed look that turned into a double-take. “Are you okay?”

“I feel like… this must be what Olympic athletes feel like right before the starting gun goes off,” Quinn said, adjusting her pack again and clenching her fists around the straps until her knuckles ached. “I don’t know if I’m scared or excited or what.”

“Probably a bit of both,” CJ interrupted, coming up alongside Chevy and peering over at Quinn. “Try not to pass out, please. The idea of giving anyone mouth to mouth makes me a bit queasy considering the decline of proper oral hygiene. No matter how attractive the patient may be…” She punctuated her sentence with a cheeky wink that had Quinn rolling her eyes.

“Why couldn’t we have rescued a dentist?” Quinn wondered, running her tongue over her teeth and then wincing. “Or a hygienist? I could have settled for a hygienist.”

“You’ll never catch me with my hands near someone’s teeth,” CJ grumbled. “Thank you, but after the things I’ve seen that’s an even firmer ‘no’ than before. Too many stories of children and some adults biting down on fingers protected only by a thin glove.”

“You’re a surgeon; you put your hands into people’s guts and mouths freak you out?” Chevy asked, then laughed and clapped CJ on the back, nearly sending her face first into the dirt. “Awesome.”

“I can’t do my job if my digits have been amputated by cavity riddled teeth,” CJ sniffed, shuddering. “The horror.”

“Can we please stop talking about teeth, missing appendages, and horror?” Quinn asked, mostly rhetorically.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a ‘Scream Queen’?” Chevy responded, only partially teasing.

“No, I was in one horror movie, one, and it was more of a thriller. The ‘Dead Beats’ series was more action oriented and just happened to have zombies as the main plight my character was facing.” Quinn rolled her eyes and punched Chevy in the shoulder when he stared at her incredulously. “I mean it! Those are action films!”

“Will you think less of me if I tell you that I never saw them?” CJ asked. “I much preferred your more serious roles. ‘Eulogy for Crows’ was my favorite; I cried every time. You deserved that Oscar, for sure.”

“Thank you,” Quinn said, ducking her head. “I was so shocked that I beat out Jennifer Lawrence for that one.”

“Is that the one where you played the… exotic dancer?” Chevy’s eyes got this distant, dreamy look in them, earning him another solid punch to the chest. “Ow!”

“Don’t,” Quinn groaned. “Don’t do that. It gives me the creeps.”

“What, I was just thinking about the role and how awesome you were. I totally cried, too,” he defended, rubbing at his sore pec. “Geeze, don’t think so little of me. I still prefer the non-horror horror movie though. That was badass – you know when you were fighting off that Twilight guy on the roof? Seriously cool.”

“Taylor was such a nice guy,” Quinn said and shook her head against the haze of memories. “I can’t remember if it was on the blooper reel but I actually kneed him in the balls on accident when we were filming that.”

“Hey, you guys ready?” Rachel called, drawing their attention.

Reality crashed back in and Quinn sighed heavily. “Thanks for distracting me, but looks like someone just called ‘places’.”

“It’s going to be fine, Hollywood,” Chevy said as he threw his arms around both Quinn and CJ’s necks. “Just a nice walk through an abandoned military base and then a short helicopter ride down to the ocean. Very touristy, if you ask me.”

“There’s something very wrong with you,” CJ muttered, eyeing him warily.

“Or very right,” he argued, complete with a cheesy grin and waggle of his dark eyebrows.

“Would you quit hitting on people and focus?” Luz demanded, hands on her hips as the trio approached.

“Don’t be jealous.”

“Shut up and get over here,” Luz snapped. “You’re, for some reason I can’t fathom, the expert here.”

His grin turned lascivious just long enough to earn him a slap to the back of the head from Quinn.

“Ow! Quit hitting me, woman!”

Grumbling under his breath about violent movie stars, he knelt and stretched one hand out to draw in the sand. “Ok, everyone get to where you can see this. We’re going to use a wedge formation, alright? There are some basic things that are very important that you all need to know…”

The energy that ran through the band of survivors was near electric. Everyone watched Chevy sketch in the sand with rapt attention, weary eyes sparking with life as the plan was laid out for them. Quinn looked from those faces down to Chevy, marveling again at how lucky she’d been to run into him, Luz, and Alex. He was so obviously in his element falling back onto training, used to the harshest environments the world had to offer and working through plans – even teaching them to “troops”.

She could almost allow herself to trip into the daydream that she was back on set or location getting a safety briefing or having a sequence explained to both her and the extras gathered around their expert. Almost.

There were so many times over the years when she’d been struck by surrealistic nature of her new life. So much of it felt like a dream – like she was stuck in a never ending project – that she kept looking for the camera, waiting for someone to call “cut”.

Looking across the gaggle over Chevy’s animated gestures, her eyes caught Rachel’s and the glimmer of remembered Hollywood fell completely away.

Quinn knew, she did, just how implausibly real their situation was. The dead were walking, their ruined bodies and minds reduced down to the most basic of instincts. They were predators camouflaged in the wrappings of their former lives – animals in human’s clothing.

Death in corporeal form.

Until Rachel, Quinn had been able to safely hide behind her memories - she saw make-up and effects when she saw zombies stumbling towards her. She remembered green screens and extras and Favreau cutting up with her between takes. It allowed her to have some sense of security that the end of the day after the last cut was called, she was only Quinn again, hanging suspended in mid-air by a harness and wires, grinning and giving her director the middle-finger when he made a cheerleader joke.

Now there was no-one to call “cut”, either in her mind or in reality.

No green screen, no mats to catch her if she fell, no wires to hoist her to safety or allow her superhuman abilities. The extras weren’t wearing prosthetics and fake gore. Any blood spilt wouldn’t be manufactured for the stage. If there was friendly fire there wouldn’t be strategically placed squibs erupting under clothes, it would all be real.

Real.

If anyone – if Rachel – was bitten, or harmed in any way, they wouldn’t fall down oh so dramatically only to pop up again, grinning around fake-blood smeared features.

It knocked the wind out of Quinn, setting her hands back to shaking as her brain slammed back into the moment.

“So to reiterate, we’re going in through the main entrance and then heading south down to the flight line,” Chevy concluded and pointed up at Luz. “Our tour guide today is the angry Marine there; she’ll be in group one. All you have to do is keep eyes on the point group and you’ll be fine. Roger?”

The group grumbled and nodded and Quinn’s chest tightened just that much further. They’d agreed earlier that splitting into small “squads” would be better than meandering through like a herd of elk, but it meant that she wouldn’t have Chevy, Luz, or Alex with her. Or Rachel, either.

Loneliness closed in and her hand twitched at her side, bereft of Rachel’s firm grasp – contact that frightened but soothed, an anchor to keep her steady. She didn’t want it but she craved it, her muddled emotions tangling together, the contradiction pushing her in one way and pulling her in another.

And then the grasp was back, Rachel’s hand sliding into place in her own. Quinn hadn’t even noticed that the circle had broken up for last-last minute preparations: saying prayers, checking and re-checking packs, assuring the children that everything was going to be okay, that they were going on a grand adventure to find a new home.

The lie of safety seemed to fall from their lips with alarming ease.

“Hey,” Rachel said, squeezing Quinn’s fingers, the anchor tugging Quinn back to Earth. “Don’t hyperventilate, okay?”

“This is real.” Quinn looked down into Rachel’s worried brown eyes and fumbled to find her footing lest she fall in and drown.

“Don’t get cold feet on me now,” Rachel chided, smiling hesitantly.

“Real, real, real,” Quinn’s mind was shrieking, alarm bells blaring so loudly that she wanted to cover her ears. Beth was gone, home was gone, reality was upside down and inside out.

“Quinn,” Beth said, all big hazel eyes and Puck’s ears, her little mouth curled downwards in a thoughtful frown that Quinn recognized as her own. “What happens when people die?”

Taken aback at the blunt, but innocent, question, Quinn paused, bare feet digging into the moist ground as the tide lapped at her ankles. “I don’t know, honey, but I believe that they go to heaven.”

“Why?”

“It’s what I choose to believe,” Quinn replied, stooping down and tugging Beth closer. “Why are you asking?”

“Grandma died,” Beth explained, with a touch of impatience – like Quinn should have already known that. “I wanted to know what happens after.”

“Well what do you think happens?”

Beth squinted up at Quinn and then peeked around her out towards the sea. “I think we’re like caterpillars.”

“Caterpillars?” Quinn repeated, eyebrows shooting up towards her hairline.

Her daughter nodded, sun-bleached blonde hair falling into her eyes. “Yeah. Caterpillars die in their cocoon but then they come back and they’re butterflies. So why can’t we do that, too?”

“Maybe we do,” Quinn said, scooping Beth up into her arms. Her little girl, the mini-philosopher, laid her head contently on Quinn’s shoulder, never too big to be held. “Maybe we do.”

“Quinn?” Rachel asked and Quinn shook her head, eyes damp and burning. “Where’d you just go?”

“Just finding my wings,” Quinn explained shakily, squeezing Rachel’s fingers right back. “You be careful out here, okay Broadway?”

Rachel’s shrewd stare bored right into Quinn and she let it go, leaving herself open to whatever insight Rachel wanted to glean. Finally Rachel nodded slowly, the barest of movements, and then she tugged her sunglasses down from their perch in her hair and pressed them snugly up the bridge of her nose. “You, too. You remember what I said.”

“I won’t let you down,” Quinn promised, and let go.

\---

TBC...


	9. Chapter Eight

In the fading sunlight Quinn crept along with knees bent, half-stooped to make herself as small as possible without sacrificing mobility. Her shotgun was warm in her hands, almost too hot to hang on to, forcing her sweaty palms to constantly re-adjust to hold on without blistering the already abused skin. She’d let go of it twice on purpose, hanging on with one hand so she could dip the other into the sand, using the gritty particles to dry and add grip.

They were in a staggered sort of pattern, Luz’s group in the lead on the left side of the road, Rachel’s just behind her on the right, and then Quinn’s group on the left and so forth, all the way down the line.

It assuaged some of Quinn’s fear, being able to see Rachel and knowing that Chevy was right behind, but in the lengthening shadows Quinn couldn’t help but see blood-dipped monsters lying in wait and ready to pounce.

She’d barely been paying attention to those in her group - none of them a familiar face - and while she felt tied to them simply because they were like her, she didn’t feel the same pull for them that she did for those she knew.

Not until a smaller shape stumbled and fell next to her.

Quinn reached down automatically, looping her arm around the small body and tugging it back upwards. It was only when she’d hitched the little girl onto her hip that what she’d just done out of habit smacked her in the face. What it was she was holding -- and who it wasn’t.

She jerked and looked down into wide blue eyes, startlingly clear and too frightened to be wary of the stranger that had scooped her up. It wasn’t Beth, but in that moment Quinn was back on the beach with her little girl securely in her arms, sturdy and warm and alive asking about life after death.

“Hi,” Quinn whispered, gripping tighter instead of letting the girl back down. It was awkward, her shotgun dangling perilously from one hand while her other arm held the girl to her. “I’m Quinn.”

“Becca,” the girl responded. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old, all tiny body and big trusting eyes. Becca wasn’t Beth, but she was looking at Quinn the same way -- trusting in her to keep her safe, to be the grown up she could depend on.

Suddenly something clicked into place and Quinn eased Becca back down onto her feet, making sure she had her footing before they kept moving. They were now lagging a little behind the others, but Quinn didn’t care. “You stay close to me, okay?”

It was painful, twisting her up inside and poking at the fiery coal that she refused to acknowledge if at all possible, but Becca also had given her purpose. She adjusted the shotgun back into both hands, ignoring the ache in her palms, and started forward, stepping slowly and more surely while keeping Becca in her peripheral, ready to catch her should she fall again.

They were within sight of the airfield, finally. Quinn could see the end glimmering at her, the overbearing sun flashing off the metal and glass of the Sea Stallions. Some were obviously not going to be salvageable but they only needed one. Just one.

Up ahead she saw Luz raise her fist into the air and she stopped immediately, swinging the shotgun over to one hand again and reaching for Becca with the other. She looked around, straining her ears and eyes trying to find what it was that had made Luz stop so close to their goal. A chill came over her, that feeling of knowing something was there but not being able to see it; it was the unease of a child scared in their bed at night, the form of a monster or ghost made real thanks to the combination of shadows and imagination.

She shot a glance across the street and saw Rachel similarly crouched and looking back. When Rachel saw that Quinn was staring at her in question she shrugged.

Quinn’s anxiety skipped up another notch.

Rachel didn’t see it either, but judging from the way she was moving -- gathering the children closer to her, head swiveling in all directions – she felt it, too.

How stupid they were to think it could all be that easy. That they could walk in freely and take what they needed.

Everything was still and nobody moved, and Quinn was afraid to breathe too loudly for fear of triggering whatever it was that was bearing down on them, just waiting to explode.

All that was missing was a tumbleweed rolling through their midst.

“Runners!”

Chaos erupted at the scream; Quinn could almost hear an air-raid siren blaring as everybody jumped into motion. Luz’s group took off at a dead run, sprinting towards the tarmac, and then Rachel’s group was up to follow after.

Quinn didn’t think about it, didn’t question her decision the minute it happened upon her. She dropped her shotgun to the side, swept Becca up into her arms and raced after Rachel, somehow catching up with her as though the distance separating them hadn’t been that great and the weight of Becca against her chest hadn’t slowed her at all. “Rachel!”

Rachel -- bless her -- stopped without a skid to a halt or stumble, body swaying forward as her momentum tried to keep her going. She whirled around, no question in her expression and not a word passing her lips. One look at the girl in Quinn’s arms and she was reaching out, taking Becca into her own and then heading off again, staggering a little at the first few steps until her pace smoothed out and she was gone, barreling flat out after the others.

The relief was short lived as Quinn whipped back around instead of running after Rachel. She spied Chevy nearby crouched behind a flattened and burnt out shell of a car. He grunted when she crashed into him, hissing in pain as her abused knees hotly protested her using them to soften the blow of the Earth when she fell.

“Oh, hey, nice of you to join me,” Chevy drawled with a calmness that Quinn loathed and loved about him. “I see you didn’t bring anything to the party; how rude.”

He fired two shots in quick succession, setting her ears to ringing dully. Her hands gripped around nothing, her shotgun still laying where she’d abandoned it and she’d never felt more naked in her entire life. More gunfire sounded from around them, the few brave souls that had stayed behind to hold the line and give Luz a chance at finding them an escape hatch dropping a few of the snarling, foul smelling, once-humans that were stampeding towards them like a herd of elephants.

Behind the ever ambitious runners a seemingly endless mass of walkers shambled ever forward with mouths open, eyes unseeing but pointed in the direction of the noise, ready to pick over anything left over from their faster brothers and sisters.

Adrenaline slammed into Quinn like acid in her veins, sharpening things like she’d suddenly switched over to HD with every vivid detail burned into her memory to be replayed over and over in her nightmares later.

One runner caught up to a straggler, the roughly gurgled scream and splash of red so horrifying that Quinn couldn’t look away.

“Fuckers,” Chevy swore viciously next to her and adjusted, rifle firing again, too little too late as the bullet hit its mark, blowing out the back of the feasting zombie’s skull. It didn’t matter -- as soon as it dropped two others were in its place, swarming over the carcass like carrion birds on the African plains.

Alex hit the car next to her with enough force to earn a shriek from the twisted and charred metal. “Q, you should have gone with the others... where the fuck is your gun?” He didn’t wait for a response, holding out a replacement for her that she didn’t have the guts to wonder where he’d acquired it from. She took it and aimed without pause, reveling in the pain as it bucked into her bruised shoulder as a reminder that she was still alive.

“There’s too many; we need to move back,” Alex said, pulling his eye away from his scope to shoot Quinn a grim look. “Move back!” he shouted to the other few still with them.

They didn’t have to be told twice, but Quinn didn’t watch them go, far too focused on dropping as many zombies as she possibly could, chanting “one shot, one kill” over and over in her head as she carefully picked her targets and took her time in finding her aim.

“Get down,” Chevy announced flatly, yanking something off his vest. Quinn barely had time to realize it was a grenade, before he was pulling the pin, flinging it over the car, and reaching for her. The blast was close enough for her to feel the shockwave, the steady ring in her ears turning to a dull buzz that made her think she was underwater for a couple of woozy seconds. Something struck her in the forehead, the sting snapping her back into reality. She swiped at the hot spot on her skin but didn’t have time to see if she was actually bleeding, Chevy already tugging her up and then they were stumbling, running towards the others. The drone of the zombies called out to them, a crowd of lost souls beckoning, begging.

Through the sticky slide of blood dripping down into her eyes Quinn saw Rachel. Just a speck, a silhouette in the distance, but Quinn knew it was Rachel waiting for her. Watching for her.

She forced her wobbly legs to move faster.

\---

Rachel watched, heart in her throat, as several figures rushed out across the tarmac, her eyes drawn to the trio at the far back -- two men and a woman between them, her blonde hair lit up like a flame under the sun.

Behind her she heard Luz barking orders and the sound of metal scraping along the ground, the hasty clinks and crashes as every person with limited knowledge of mechanical things hurried to repair, to save their now thin hope for survival.

If they couldn’t get it working soon it would all be for nothing.

She couldn’t help with the chopper; her only experience with a wrench was holding it out to Finn when he asked for it, and half the time she handed him the wrong tool anyway.

All she could do was stand there with the group of children pressed tightly behind her, watching as the horizon filled up with walking death.

“You’ve had that the whole time?” She heard Quinn shouting, and wavered on her feet. Quinn sounded annoyed and that meant that she was okay.

“I was saving it for a special occasion!” Chevy snapped back.

And then there they were.

Quinn may have sounded okay, but she looked like something out of a horror movie. Rachel might have appreciated the irony of if she wasn’t too busy fighting down the urge to be sick. Blood was flowing freely from a cut above Quinn’s eye bathing her face in red, but it didn’t matter because the second they were within arm’s reach Rachel was stretching out for her. She gripped hard at Quinn’s biceps, fingers digging in harder than she’d intended.

“You’ve got red on you,” Rachel commented softly, surprising both herself and Quinn if the goggle-eyed expression was anything to go by.

“We’re revisiting you quoting Shaun of the Dead later,” Quinn said, swiping at her face with her dirty sleeve and wincing before she spit out a mouthful of bloody saliva. “Now’s really not the time – here they come.”

There wasn’t time to say anything else; there was never enough time when Rachel wanted it or needed it.  
She didn’t even have time to ask if Quinn was okay because she was already moving away and turning around, wiping at her face again and then stretching out on the ground at Rachel’s feet, one leg curled up, backpack slung off and then the rifle balanced on the pack as Quinn started sighting in on the walkers steadily moving towards them.

Rachel turned around and knelt facing Skyler and the others that had gravitated towards her like baby ducks behind their mother. “Skyler, this is important -- stay close to the helicopter. If it – if the monsters get to where I am I want you to take the other kids and run. You hear me? You run.”

Skyler nodded solemnly, then leaned forward and hugged her tightly, burrowing into her shoulder for the briefest of moments before he was backing away, taking Becca’s hand and waving at the others who followed after him obediently.

She couldn’t watch, swallowing back tears and blinking her eyes clear. They wouldn’t survive and she knew that. She knew that Skyler knew, too. It just meant that she had to give them a fighting chance. All of them.

Pulling her rifle around, she slipped the sling over her head and then turned again, maintaining her kneeling position. Elbow propped up on one knee she settled in with Quinn just beside her, picked a target, and fired.

Bolt back. Brass flying. Chamber another round.

Fire.

She tuned out everything else: the clink of brass bouncing, Quinn firing beside her, more shots down the line, behind her the yelling and clatter of the others working on the Sea Stallion. It was just her and her own ragged breathing that she was forcing herself to smooth out, the world seen through the iron sights on the old rifle. Her arms were trembling and her hands aching, but that couldn’t matter either.

Not until she heard the stuttered cough of the engine turning over did she glance up, sharing a look with Quinn before they both turned to see the rotors waving, turning just the barest of amounts.

Eyes locked again with muddied hazel Rachel opened her mouth to try and find the right words to convey everything before they…

The chopper sputtered again and then the engine turned over, the turbines started to whine and Rachel’s hair swirled up into the air.

“Get in the chopper!” Several voices shouted at once.

“Rachel, go!” Quinn ordered and Rachel shook her head adamantly, returning her cheek to the stock to fire again. “Rachel!”

“They’re too close! They need time!” Rachel shouted back. She picked off another walker and then choked as from the back of the crowd a runner came charging up, fumbling over the body Rachel had just dropped. 

“Quinn!”

Quinn didn’t answer, nor did she fire, instead lifting Rachel up off the ground and shoving her towards the open hatch of the helicopter. “Now!”

Rachel bit back a reply and struggled under the wash from the rotors to do as told – she couldn’t waste time arguing. She was half way up the ramp when she turned back to see Quinn standing straight up, feet planted firmly, barrel of the rifle tracking as the runner came at her. “Now, Quinn, now. Quit playing around,” she whispered.

Something was wrong. Quinn turned the rifle over in her hands, pounded at it, raised it again… and then tossed it on the ground.

She saw Quinn pull the knife from her belt and that was all Rachel needed for her legs to unfreeze, diving into the belly of the Sea Stallion to scramble through various packs that covered the floor, digging desperately until her hands hit something smooth. She lifted and found herself holding Quinn’s shovel, of all things. There wasn’t time to look for anything else or to demand someone give her a weapon, and before she realized it she was already running back out the hatch, just in time to see the runner collide with Quinn, knocking her to the ground.

Quinn was stabbing it; she could see the frantic thrusting motion of Quinn’s arm, the blackish blood spilling freely, and Quinn straining to keep her wound out of the mess and her face away from the snapping, rotted teeth of her attacker.

“Hey!” Rachel shouted, feeling déjà vu wash over her as she repeated Quinn’s own words what seemed like a lifetime before. When the zombie twisted and snarled up at her she swung the shovel as hard as she could, teeth clicking together and arms vibrating with the force as it clanged against the zombies head. It fell to the side of Quinn who was staring up at Rachel, chest heaving and splattered with blood, pale and panicked. 

Rachel stepped over her and swung the shovel again and again until there was nothing but bloody pulp spread all over like rotten pumpkin guts.

“Would you two get in here!” Chevy yelled, waving frantically.

Rachel stooped and held her hand out for Quinn, leaning back as Quinn pulled herself to her feet. She pulled Quinn’s arm over her shoulders and wrapped her free hand around her waist, helping her hobble along up the ramp.

The second their feet were over the hatch it started to close and Rachel pressed Quinn up into the side of the aircraft, stripping her jacket off and starting to wipe at the blood and muck on Quinn’s features, trying not to be furious.

Thumps and scratches sounded from outside the safety of the walls surrounding them and Rachel ignored them, looking instead for CJ who was already shuffling through the various people and packs towards them. 

Beneath them the Stallion bucked, sending Rachel’s stomach up into her throat to drop right back down.

“We’re out of here!” Ollie whooped from the cockpit. A round of cheers went up around them but Rachel was too busy trying to decide if she should slap Quinn or kiss her to join in.

Quinn smiled weakly, as though she maybe could sense the direction of Rachel’s thoughts, and then she was falling, limply sagging and sliding to the cold metal floor with Rachel trying to help her down as gently as possible. “I’m kind of tired,” she said thickly.

“What am I going to do with you?” CJ wondered, ripping off a strip of her own shirt and wetting it with her canteen. Quinn’s eyes closed as the damp cloth moved over her face, grimacing when CJ’s hand got too close to the fresh cut.

“You stubborn, pig-headed, annoying, suicidal bitch.” Rachel pinched Quinn’s arm and glared when Quinn opened up one eye. “You promised.”

“Ah, maybe I’ll just leave you to her; that seems suitable punishment,” CJ joked. “This will need stitches, of course, but I think that may have to wait when we’re back on semi-stable ground.”

“Thanks, Cindy,” Quinn said, raising an eyebrow at CJ who chuckled warmly and shook her head. “Damn, thought that was it for sure. Cynthia?”

“One guess per day,” CJ said, smoothing a bandaid just over Quinn’s eyebrow. “You’ve reached your limit.” She turned to Rachel and pointed at Quinn. “Keep her awake.”

Rachel nodded and squeezed herself into the space next to Quinn, ignoring the pitching of the world as Luz flew them in what she hoped was the right direction. She grabbed hold of Quinn’s arm and pulled it tight to her chest, unabashedly snuggling into Quinn’s side. “I’m very angry with you.”

“Finally,” Quinn mumbled, head drooping backwards as she sighed. “My life is back to normal.”

\---  
TBC in The Humbling River.


End file.
